Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!gatech!udel!burdvax!bpa!cbmvax!vu-vlsi!devon!shockeye!hermit
From: hermit@shockeye.UUCP (Mark Buda)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: A suggestion: .... == ../../..
Message-ID: <225@shockeye.UUCP>
Date: 24 Apr 88 22:54:46 GMT
References: <75@vertical.oz> <1934@bgsuvax.UUCP> <2653@bsu-cs.UUCP> <911@dutinfd.UUCP>
Reply-To: hermit@chessene.UUCP (Mark Buda)
Organization: Competitive Computer Systems, Lancaster PA
Lines: 32

In article <911@dutinfd.UUCP> oosten@dutinfd.UUCP (Gertjan van Oosten) writes:
>
>    Why do some of you want to add extra inodes for ... .... etc.?
>    This could give you some trouble, like "File System Full"....
>
>    What I mean is: where do you stop? Do you just want an entry for ...
>    or also one for .... (okay, one more for the road: .....)???
>
>    The solution to all this is:
>        do NOT create new inodes for ... etc.

I thought this was comp.unix.wizards! :-) You wouldn't be creating new
inodes for ... .... etc. You would be adding directory entries. Unless
you've got REALLY deep nesting levels, you wouldn't be taking up any extra
space most of the time, anyway. (BSD disk block fragmenting intentionally
ignored here.) Say you've got a SysV system. 1K disk blocks. 14-character
filenames limit you to .............., incidentally. So you won't be adding
more than 12 entries anyway. Only 3/8 of your directories will end up with
an extra block tacked on, assuming the number of files in a directory is a
random number. Less than that, even.

It's a stupid idea, anyway. And this is a stupid comment. I just wanted to
point out that it wouldn't involve any extra inodes.

Hmmm... except that the root directory would be pretty huge. Especially on
a BSD system with 256-character filenames or whatever it is. Gee, it would
be something like 64K. .,..,...,....,.....,......,.......,........,.......
you get the idea.
-- 
Mark Buda / Smart UUCP: hermit@chessene.uucp / Phone(work):(717)299-5189
Dumb UUCP: ...{rutgers,ihnp4,cbosgd}!bpa!vu-vlsi!devon!chessene!hermit
Entropy will get you in the end.
"A little suction does wonders." - Gary Collins