Hans Reiser writes: > Nikita Danilov wrote: > > > > >But cycles are "solvable" in current file systems too: they simply do > >not exist there. > > > > > Yes, but Nikita, cycles represent semantic functionality that has value > because being able to embody more expressions means more power of
If you mean that multiple parents have some value, I agree. Problem is that solutions proposed so far have severe limitation: - they add support for cycle detection that is necessary to support multiple parents, but that support is only efficient for "small" datasets: when total number of objects is not very big, and "average" object has only one parent. - even when there are no multiple parents, system is not efficient for large number of files. > expression. If some way can be found to allow them, then functionality > is increased. Separating links that increase reference count from links > that merely point (ala hard vs. sym links) is one approach. If there > was effective enough for real world use cycle detection, that would be > better. It seems to me that in the domains where proposed designs are applicable, symlinks already provide viable solution. Nikita.
