On Sun, 16 Jan 2005 16:37:52 -0000, P Witte wrote
> To develop this idea a bit further: Keep the old directory structure,
> but use it in a different way. Instead of a combined
> pathame/filename, each record stores a filename of say max 20 or 22
> char long, which may be seen by old programs that read the raw
> directory structure. Each directory record also stores a unique file
> number (and possibly additional housekeeping information) and that
> file number is a unique file identifyer.
And why not use the existing 36 bytes as this unique file ID? Thus you keep
your compatibility with today's file system, ie existing programs see the
file name were it always was, and if someone wants to use longer names then
the system would choose those 36 bytes at random and then back to your idea.
I am not a programmer but I wonder for a long time why this could not work.
Arnould
NB I must use Lotus notes at work. I work in a 100.000 people multinational
company. All of us use Lotus Notes. Lotus Notes is not only an emailing
system but rather a database system. I recently found out for a personal
small development that the millions of records (not files, records) in the
hundreds of databases online all over the world seem to have a random
identification number of 32 bytes giving more 10^77 unique ids and nearly no
chance of a clash. Though I am not sure, I believe that those databases rely
on this scheme to uniquely identify all those records (Ok then each database
also has a unique identifier which is in fact even longer: I do not
understand why but that should make the system future proof enough). If Lotus
Notes can do it, then the QL file system could also do it with even more
security as 36 bytes gives 4x10^86 possibilities.
For those interested: I use those unique record IDs to directly access the
records from outside Lotus Notes without having to manually open the
application _and_ the database _and_ locate the record within the database
from a too well known spreadsheet and a very simple VBasic "macro" using the
shell command.
While I write this, I suddenly realise that I could have done it from
QPC+SMSQ/E+SBASIC since QPC has the same shell command (or open a Windows
application from SBASIC), but then I should have bought about 150 QPCs for
the ~150 users of this system in my company!
WebMail / Magic OnLine
http://www.magic.fr
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