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Date:      Tue, 7 Apr 2009 14:16:14 +0100 (BST)
From:      Robert Watson <rwatson@FreeBSD.org>
To:        Stephan Lichtenauer <fbsdlists@honeyguide.net>
Cc:        freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org, Gabriele Modena <gabriele.modena@gmail.com>
Subject:   Re: GSoC: Semantic File System
Message-ID:  <alpine.BSF.2.00.0904071415320.45341@fledge.watson.org>
In-Reply-To: <DD0763BE-B26E-4FDA-8273-520DC1E2A082@honeyguide.net>
References:  <1fe1d5d60903210422g70efef15hdd685695cdf8df3c@mail.gmail.com> <alpine.BSF.2.00.0903221649590.51184@fledge.watson.org> <1fe1d5d60904020904ya6dcb00h54a54d6a00e2bd0@mail.gmail.com> <alpine.BSF.2.00.0904021813110.94891@fledge.watson.org> <DD0763BE-B26E-4FDA-8273-520DC1E2A082@honeyguide.net>

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On Tue, 7 Apr 2009, Stephan Lichtenauer wrote:

> Am 02.04.2009 um 19:26 schrieb Robert Watson:
>
>> In the BeOS model, or my reinterpretation based on something I read a long 
>> time ago and then presumably had dreams about, the split is a bit 
>> different: the file system maintains indexes of extended attributes, which 
>> are written by applications in order to expose searchable material.  For 
>> example, a mail application might write out each message as a file, and 
>> attach a series of extended attributes, such as subject line, date, author, 
>> etc.  These extended attributes are then indexed automatically by the file 
>> system in order to allow queries to be evaluated.  I don't recall how 
>> queries and results are expressed, and in particular, whether the queries 
>> are processed by the file system (possibly exposed via special APIs or the 
>> name space) or userspace (accessing special files maintained by the kernel 
>> that are the indexes).
>> 
>> It's also worth observing that one of the authors of BFS was Dominic 
>> Giampaolo, who now works on Apple's HFS+, and implemented fsevents there as 
>> part of their Spotlight project.
>
> Maybe you also might be interested that there is a PDF document (formerly 
> book) from Dominic available describing the BeOS file system in great 
> detail: http://www.haiku-os.org/legacy-docs/practical-file-system-design.pdf
>
> Additionally, there seems to be a GSoC project to create something like 
> Spotlight for Haiku, the open source BeOS clone. You could browse through 
> the haiku-developer mailing list archives at 
> http://www.freelists.org/archive/haiku-development, the thread where this 
> has been discussed is titled "Need Some GSoC Advice" with the first mail 
> from 21 March.

Actually, I have a original copy of the book on the bookshelf behind me. :-)

Robert N M Watson
Computer Laboratory
University of Cambridge



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