Stephen Potter writes:
> James Carlson wrote:
> > The contents file is currently a documented part of the system (see
> > contents(4)), and, more importantly, there are applications that have
> > come to depend on it.
> 
> It is also documented as "unstable", so by my understanding that makes it
> more acceptable for us to break it.

Agreed; but see the "more importantly" part.  Even if we _can_ break
it, we have to consider carefully whether we _should_ do so.

> > Without that, yes, you can break up the file, as long as you figure
> > out some reasonable way to handle shared components (such as
> > directories).  As Dave said, there are likely other things that need
> > to be addressed.
> 
> Could we break it on FS hierarchy, something like contents.etc, contents.usr, 
> contents.var, etc?  Or, perhaps as a directory contents/etc, contents/usr, 
> contents/var?  It may need to go to two levels somehow, as on my system 
> 142000 
> of the 147000 lines of contents are for files in usr.  Maybe
> 
> contents (top directory)
> contents/contents (files in root, including directory entries)
> contents/usr/contents (files in usr, including directory entries)
> contents/usr/lib/contents (files in /usr/lib)
> contents/usr/ucb/contents (files in /usr/ucb)
> ...etc...

Yes, that could work.

-- 
James Carlson, KISS Network                    <james.d.carlson at sun.com>
Sun Microsystems / 1 Network Drive         71.232W   Vox +1 781 442 2084
MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757   42.496N   Fax +1 781 442 1677

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