Re: Special file names "." and ".." in READDIR response

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From: Erez Zadok (ezk@cs.columbia.edu)
Date: 11/03/99-09:26:13 AM Z 

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 1999 10:26:13 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <199911031526.KAA20112@shekel.mcl.cs.columbia.edu>
From: Erez Zadok <ezk@cs.columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: Special file names "." and ".." in READDIR response 

In message <v04003a00b445c275952c@[207.44.46.210]>, Jude Giampaolo writes:
> At 11:27 PM -0800 11/2/99, Brent wrote:
> 
> >I like Neil's suggestion to reserve values.  Cookie 0 is already
> >reserved.
> >Why not also reserve cookies 1 and 2.  Then the server
> >can construct valid cookies just by adding 2 to the cookie
> >value.  I'm sure the server can manage with those two cookie values
> >missing from its cookie space.
> 
> I have to agree with this. When I wrote a v2 server, special casing '.' and
> '..' was a pain. Having special cookie values would have gone a long way in
> solving the problem.

I also agree that special casing them would be helpful.  I also would have
found it useful when I added the "readdir" support to Amd (the automounter),
so that people can browse automounted directories.

However, if these cookies are known to be 1+ or 2+ a given value, there's a
danger that clients might assume that.  So maybe a statement clarifying this
should be made?

> Jude Giampaolo
> jude@ktb.ee.psu.edu
> jude@prozac.eeap.cwru.edu

Erez Zadok.
Columbia University Department of Computer Science.
EMail: ezk@cs.columbia.edu           Web: http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~ezk

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