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From: boyd@basser.oz (Boyd Roberts)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: /tmp versus temporary file types
Message-ID: <468@basser.oz>
Date: Tue, 22-Oct-85 00:06:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: basser.468
Posted: Tue Oct 22 00:06:41 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 23-Oct-85 06:15:23 EDT
References: <136@mcgill-vision.UUCP> <3793@garfield.UUCP> <1854@umcp-cs.UUCP> <338@uwvax.UUCP> <1622@gatech.CSNET>
Reply-To: boyd@basser.OZ (Boyd Roberts)
Organization: Dept. of Comp. Science, Uni of Sydney, Australia
Lines: 26


  In article <1622@gatech.CSNET> arnold@gatech.CSNET (Arnold Robbins) writes:
  >Why not do something like
  >
  >	fd = open ("/dev/temp", O_RDWR);
  >	/* O_CREAT implied by the use of /dev/temp */
  >
  >The kernel just grabs a fresh inode off whatever device /tmp is mounted on,
  >or the "temp device" could be a configurable parameter in the same way that
  >the swap device is. Then flink() or whatever ought to work properly as well.

Yes, that's the way.  Re-define the semantics of the system calls because
you want dodgy feature X.  The UNIX file-system is clean and straight forward.
So too are the system calls.  But, oh no, instead of using the interfaces
provided it's time to mash them into five zillion different flavours, with
no gain in functionality.

How about a "/dev/dir" for directories, "/dev/pipe" for pipes, "/dev/link"
for links?  And, of course, depending on the file type change the semantics
of the system calls.  Add fchdir().

Be real.  Write a function to provide the interface you want, using the
interfaces provided.  Give a programmer a job, but *DON'T* bust the kernel!


Boyd Roberts			...!seismo!munnari!basser.oz!boyd