Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!physics.utoronto.ca!neufeld Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2 From: neufeld@physics.utoronto.ca (Christopher Neufeld) Subject: Re: Logical file linking? Message-ID: <1990Jun4.191523.2147@helios.physics.utoronto.ca> Organization: University of Toronto Physics/Astronomy/CITA References: <1990Jun1.190541.2119@helios.physics.utoronto.ca> Date: 4 Jun 90 23:15:24 GMT OK, here's an idea of what I thought might work. I'm much more familiar with DOS3.3 than ProDOS, so maybe I'm making a poor assumption here. Create a new command "LINK ," and modify the DELETE command. I assume that ProDOS has an equivalent of the track/sector list and that it might have a few unused bits lying around somewhere. These bits would act as a link counter, set to one when the file is created. Now, the LINK command would create a new directory entry which would point to an existing track/sector list and would increment the link counter. The modified DELETE command would remove the directory entry and decrement the link counter. If the link counter is decremented to zero in this way, the file itself will be deleted and the physical disk space freed for other use. If DOS3.3 had subdirectories I could write a patch to it to do this quite easily. Is ProDOS so different that this couldn't be done? -- Christopher Neufeld....Just a graduate student | He's the kind of person neufeld@helios.physics.utoronto.ca | who'd follow you into a cneufeld@pro-generic.cts.com Ad astra! | revolving door and come "Don't edit reality for the sake of simplicity" | out first.