On Mar 29, 2010, at 10:56 AM, Nicolas Williams wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 06:42:17PM +0100, Darren J Moffat wrote:
>> On 29/03/2010 18:30, Don Cragun wrote:
>>>> + + Indicates the file/directory was added in the later dataset
>>>> + - Indicates the file/directory was removed in the later dataset
>>>> + M Indicates the file/directory was modified in the later
>>>> dataset
>>>> + R Indicates the file/directory was renamed in the later dataset
>>>
>>> Again, "file/directory" should just be "file" in all four lines above.
>>
>> While a that may be technically true I personally found it very
>> useful that it said file/directory. Particularly since this isn't a
>> POSIX C API man page.
>>
>> I'd rather it made it clear that both files and directories, and all
>> other types of filesystem objects are supported here, and that it do
>> so by explicitly saying file and directory.
>
> I'd say: call them "objects". (First, this matches ZFS's internal
> terminology. Second, it almost certainly will mean, to most users,
> "regular files, directories, symlinks, device nodes, ... Third, we
> really ought to call such things "objects" since calling them "files" is
> certainly confusing.)
If you look at your intro(2) man page, you'll find more than 100 uses of
the term "file" and three uses of the term "object". Unfortunately,
neither term is defined. In the standards, "file" is defined as:
An object that can be written to, or read from, or
both. A file has certain attributes, including access
permissions and type. File types include regular file,
character special file, block special file, FIFO special
file, symbolic link, socket, and directory. Other types
of files may be supported by the implementation.
Although the standards don't define "object", it is clear from the
definition of file that there are lots of objects that are not files.
There are, however, synchronization objects like barriers and mutexes,
shared memory objects. It seems to me that using a much less specific
term (object) when you mean file will obfuscate man page descriptions.
In C there are objects of type char, int, float, etc.; none of which
are files. I know it is unlikely that future Solaris releases will
be constrained by standards, but creating conflicting terminology is
only going to cause confusion for software developers who read the
standards and try to match them to Solaris man pages.
- Don
>
> Nico
