Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > linux.debian.user > #181807

Re: Automatic updating links?

Show all headers | View raw

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Tue, Jun 06, 2017 at 12:27:06PM +0100, Rodolfo Medina wrote:
> I wish to create a link to a file that wouldn't break when that file is moved
> on elsewhere in the filesystem or renamed, nay the link would automatically
> `update' pointing at the new name/address of the file.  Is that possible?
> Besides, I wish that form of automatic update also when moving or renaming the
> directory where the link itself lives.

Hm. Tough question. The most correct answer is, alas, "no". You'll have to
refine your requirements to understand why.

What shall happen when you modify the file's content? What shall happen
when you split the file into three parts? The link now points to three
files?

Once you have refined the requirements, you might come up with a strategy.
For example, if you consider files as immutable, you might consider storing
their (primary) locations under their (content) hash, kind of what Git
does behind the scenes (and some deduplicating file systems -- this pattern
has come up time and again, cf. "content addressable store"). This might
work as long as the files aren't huge (e.g. videos), where calculating the
hash itself would be prohibitive in terms of time and consumed I/O. If
files are mutable, things become more "interesting" (Git heroically tries
to tackle that, and it works "mostly", but Git's "clients" are mostly
source code files, i.e. a small subset of what files can be.

After you're clear on what you really want to have, you may perhaps find
something "out there" which fits the bill. For example, there's (at least
one) FUSE based file system with a Git backend.

Hope this gives you some ideas.

Cheers
- -- tomás
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux)

iEYEARECAAYFAlk2lPcACgkQBcgs9XrR2kZeHQCbBhQjduOGXwr6IGGW9xcZr2LT
5w8An0/HHctW3X3yigRxq2MJ6AGwUVR5
=5vzu
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Back to linux.debian.user | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread

Thread

Automatic updating links? Rodolfo Medina <rodolfo.medina@gmail.com> - 2017-06-06 13:30 +0200
  Re: Automatic updating links? <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2017-06-06 13:50 +0200
  Re: Automatic updating links? Darac Marjal <mailinglist@darac.org.uk> - 2017-06-06 14:30 +0200
  Re: Automatic updating links? Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2017-06-06 14:40 +0200
    Re: Automatic updating links? Rodolfo Medina <rodolfo.medina@gmail.com> - 2017-06-06 19:50 +0200
      Re: Automatic updating links? Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2017-06-06 20:00 +0200
        Re: Automatic updating links? Rodolfo Medina <rodolfo.medina@gmail.com> - 2017-06-06 20:20 +0200
          Re: Automatic updating links? davidson@freevolt.org - 2017-06-06 20:50 +0200
            Re: Automatic updating links? davidson@freevolt.org - 2017-06-06 21:10 +0200
          Re: Automatic updating links? Darac Marjal <mailinglist@darac.org.uk> - 2017-06-07 13:20 +0200
            Re: Automatic updating links? Dan Ritter <dsr@randomstring.org> - 2017-06-15 16:20 +0200
      Re: Automatic updating links? David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2017-06-06 21:00 +0200
        Re: Automatic updating links? Eduardo M KALINOWSKI <eduardo@kalinowski.com.br> - 2017-06-06 21:00 +0200
          Re: Automatic updating links? Rodolfo Medina <rodolfo.medina@gmail.com> - 2017-06-06 21:50 +0200
      Re: Automatic updating links? Eduardo M KALINOWSKI <eduardo@kalinowski.com.br> - 2017-06-06 21:00 +0200

csiph-web