File; Archive; and File-System theory (was: libraries)

[Brandon S. Allbery]

As quoted from <1286 at nusdhub.UUCP> by rwhite at nusdhub.UUCP (Robert C. White Jr.):
+---------------
| If you were to alter an archive sufficinetly to make it useful as a file
| system it wouldn't be an "archive" any more, you wouldn't need the
| archiving tool (because normal file system tools and functions would then
| apply), and it wouldn't be portable (unless it really caught on ;-).
+---------------

You've just proved that if I put "ar" in the FSS of my SVR3.1 box at work,
I'd have successfully made it into a file system instead of an archive.

On a V7 system, a V6 filesystem is treated as a file -- yes, an *archive*.
(See the old V7 manuals.)  Does this magically make it *not* a file system?
Of course not.  It's just not a *native* file system -- which is why System
V.3 has the FSS, so that non-native filesystems can be *made* native.

There is effectively only one difference between file systems and archives,
we seem to be agreed; however, you consider it to be an absolutely
fundamental difference, whereas I consider it to be minor and trivial.

++Brandon
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery, comp.sources.misc moderator and one admin of ncoast PA UN*X
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