Hi All, I've submitted the FileAttributesPlugin for inclusion in the VM (you can follow on the vm-dev mailing list if interested).
As Cyril Ferlicot has been quite interested in the file system and its performance, I thought I might make this available for early testing for anyone that is interested. As mentioned previously, the patch: - Extends the public interface to the file system (FileReference) relating to file attributes and iterating over directories - It doesn't make any changes to existing public behaviour (that I'm aware of). - It does make significant changes to the internals (FileSystem, DiskStore and subclasses) - Functionality relating to opening & closing files, file IO, etc. isn't touched The limitation is that it is only available through the Ubuntu snap, so you need one of: - Ubuntu 14.04 or later (16.04 or later preferred) - A container with Ubuntu 16.04 or later, e.g. Docker - Can build your own 6.1 or 7.0 VM If you: sudo snap install pharo mkdir fatest cd fatest sudo pharo.conf pharo.getimage32 pharo.ui Pharo.image And then follow the instructions at: https://github.com/akgrant43/FileAttributes you'll have the new file attributes code. Cheers, Alistair On Mon, Jul 24, 2017 at 08:09:10AM +0000, Alistair Grant wrote: > Hi All, > > I'm nearly ready to submit a patch that started with the goal of being > able to retrieve the device id and fixing FileReference>>isSymlink and > also follows Esteban's suggestion of splitting out file existence and > other attributes (which provides a performace gain). See the summary > below for a description of the changes. > > The patch involves adding a new VM plugin, FileAttriubutesPlugin. To > minimise the chance of any problems along the way I'd like to submit the > patch in three steps: > > 1. Add the VM plugin (FileAttributesPlugin) > 2. Add the code the image that allows testing of the code and plugin, > but doesn't do any integration with existing functionality. > This will allow the plugin to be tested by a few volunteers > (hopefully). > 3. Add the patches that make the switch over to the new implementation. > > > Can someone point me to how to submit a new VM plugin? The code is > contained in a subclass of InterpreterPlugin. > > I've been using this as my production environment for about 2 months now > on a linux 32 bit VM. Running the full test suite results in the same > set of test failing before and after applying the patch. > > I've also ran file related tests on linux 64 bit (run the Test Runner, > select all packages with "file" as part of the name and run all the > available tests) and the full test suite on Windows 32 bit. > > The summary is: > > 1. #isSymlink now works properly on Linux (and it should also work on > MacOS and BSD). > 2. The list of file attributes available from FileReference now is: > #accessTime (new) > #changeTime (new) > #creationTime > #deviceId (new) > #exists > #gid (new) > #inode (new) > #isBlock (new) > #isCharacter (new) > #isDirectory > #isExecutable (new) > #isFIFO (new) > #isFile > #isReadable > #isRegular (new) > #isSocket (new) > #isSymlink (works) > #isWritable > #modificationTime > #numberOfHardLinks (new) > #permissions > #size > #targetFile (new) > #uid (new) > 3. FileReference>>exists is faster than before (well, at least on my > linux laptop). This is useful as it is called quite often. > 4. It is possible to retrieve symbolic link attributes, e.g. all the > attributes listed above plus the target path. > > > Given how similar MacOS and BSD are to linux, I assume that this will > all work without problem on those platforms (but it obviously needs to > be tested). > > As implied above, the changes are all backward compatible (except > the broken #isSymlink), although a couple deserve mention: > > 1. Obviously #isSymlink now answers correctly (previously it would only > answer correctly for a broken link). > 2. Requesting any of the attributes listed above (except #isSymlink) > will return the value of the target path. If the FileReference is to a > broken symbolic link, it will return the attributes of the symbolic > link (keeping existing behaviour). > 3. The attributes of a symbolic link can be retrieved using > FileReference>>symlinkAttributes. > > Overall, performance is slightly better than before. Code that > needs to access multiple attributes and is written to take advantage of > the new behaviour will see significant performance improvements. > > > If you've got this far and forgotten the original question :-) > > Can someone point me to how to submit a new VM plugin? > > > Thanks, > Alistair
