Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!thunder.mcrcim.mcgill.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!usc!csun!kithrup!sef
From: sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan)
Newsgroups: comp.os.misc
Subject: Re: What constitutes a good OS?
Message-ID: <1991Jan17.004509.5435@kithrup.COM>
Date: 17 Jan 91 00:45:09 GMT
References: <41754@nigel.ee.udel.edu> <5298@auspex.auspex.com> <41907@nigel.ee.udel.edu>
Organization: Kithrup Enterprises, Ltd.
Lines: 20

In article <41907@nigel.ee.udel.edu> new@ee.udel.edu (Darren New) writes:
>>	2) some file system types for UNIX might well *give* directories
>>	   indices - directories generally aren't plain-text files in any
>>	   case;
>Not any more. They used to be. This broke a lot of programs at the time.

Bzzt.  Wrong answer, but thanks for playing.

Directories have never been plain-text files; they were, in fact, the only
place that the kernel enforced records.  Directories have never been
writable, except through a limited number of system calls (creat, unlink,
link, mknod, and later mkdir and rmdir), but they have always been readable.
NFS does not let one read a directory, if I remember correctly, but I have
read directories under BSD many, many times.

-- 
Sean Eric Fagan  | "I made the universe, but please don't blame me for it;
sef@kithrup.COM  |  I had a bellyache at the time."
-----------------+           -- The Turtle (Stephen King, _It_)
Any opinions expressed are my own, and generally unpopular with others.