On Aug 29, 2007, at 11:19 AM, Andre Merzky wrote:
Hi, Ole and Hartmut raised the point that the attribute interface on files is actaully useless.
Formerly, we had a number of attributes on files defined - in the latest version of the spec, only one remaines:
Where did they all go?
'Blocking'. That atgtribute however does not make much sense, as we have explicit versions for sync and async file I/O.
My original recollection of the "attributes" interface was that it allowed us to smuggle in file behaviors that would otherwise be accessed via the ioctl() and fcntl() interfaces. Perhaps we haven't found any ioctls that we really need right now, but you should keep the attributes interface around so that you can add such capabilities in an as-needed basis. That is certainly the case with ioctl() (you rarely use that interface, when when you need it, that capability is essential).
Yes, yes, sync/async and blocking/non-blocking is not exactly the same, but (a) the difference is small for our use cases AFAICS (thats different for streams), and (b) the spec does not define the behaviour for blocking/non-blocking files anyway.
I thought it was assumed that the POSIX spec for blocking/nonblocking (which would be enabled via ioctl()) would be in effect.
So the proposal is to remove that attribute, and the attribute interface on files altogether.
Any comments?
Thanks, Andre.
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