[REBOL] Re: NTFS Stream Fun
From: bga:bug-br at: 6-Aug-2002 13:38
On Wed, 7 Aug 2002, Anton wrote:
> This is the first of streams that I have heard.
> I am sceptical about its long-term value, except to
> support applications that use it already (like
> Mac forks).
> Isn't it just creating a new namespace - therefore
> creating more work in creating/accessing/deleting
> the streams?
> So, you can hide some streams in one file, keeping
> them nicely together. But what is the advantage over
> a set of files in a directory?
> We already know how to create, access, move, delete,
> compress, decompress etc. files in a filesystem, why
> create another namespace?
> Then we just have to write a set of functions that
> translate between the two namespaces - a waste of time,
> in my view.
If you move a file, the metadata follows it. if you detete a file, the
metadata is automatically deleted. Metadata (or extended attributes) are
used to store information that is relatd to the file but is not part ofthe
file itself. For instance you have a plain text file and you store the
Author's name in a extended-attribute so you can have this information
available without having to edit the contents of the file. Image thumbnail
is another example. BeOS comes with a text editor (StyledEdit) that lets
you write text files using simple text formating (changing fonts, colors
and font size of parts of the text) but after you save it you can open the
file in an standard text editor and although you will not see the special
formatting you did, there wll be no garbage in the file, only the text
itself. All formating information is saved as an attribute.
-Bruno