Re: [boost] [compond_file_binary] Gauging interest in a possible library submission.

Subject: Re: [boost] [compond_file_binary] Gauging interest in a possible library submission.
From: Minh Phanivong (m_phanivong_at_[hidden])
Date: 2012-12-02 17:20:27

On 03/12/2012, at 6:33 AM, Alexander Voitenko <tarmik_at_[hidden]> wrote:

>> Does it provide any benefits compared to mounting a loop device and
>> working with it through traditional file system interfaces? It seems
>> odd to have a library duplicating file system operations.
> 
> First of all, compound files are portable. You can use the same data, in the
> same compound files within different operating systems, not limited to
> Linux, Windows and Mac OS.
> 
> Please note, that both Unix-like systems and Windows struggling with limit
> of loop devices
> http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/CDServer-HOWTO/addloops.html [Linux]
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1944877/maximum-number-of-drives-in-windows
> [Windows]
> 
> But with a such library you can simultaneously read and write
> thousands(millions?) of such files without restrictions from the system
> side. Library can be linked statically and only thing that you will require
> to access such file - to launch your application and not necessarily written
> in C++, because already exist analogous libraries in Java
> http://poi.apache.org and C# http://openmcdf.sourceforge.net worlds.
> 
> Also, if I want to use lot of different compound files with my data within
> my application, it is to weird mount and unmount devices from the runtime
> and also require super-user privileges.
> 
> Please do not think about compound files only as file system replacement.
> Imagine software that can produce some documents. Such documents use binary
> format and have very complex internal structure, so such structure can be
> represented as file system where some logical parts are grouped in folders
> and files.
> 
> Example of such software that really uses compound files:
> http://www.corel.com/corel with it .CDX format
> http://www.amwa.tv/ with it .AWM file format
> and exist some others, but not so famous.
> 
> Of course lot of Microsoft applications use them, but I don't want mention
> them by religious reasons ;-)
> 
> User of such applications even can not know that internal representation of
> his documents is an entire file system.
> 
> In my usual work I deal with compound files like with some sort of archives.
> Store hundreds of them on my hard drive, often copy, rename, move or zip
> them and send via e-mail.
> 
> Regards,
> Alexander Voitenko.
> 
> 

I guess you can add to your examples tar. zip, iso as well and these should be accessible at the user level without super/root mount.

> 
> 
> --
> View this message in context: http://boost.2283326.n4.nabble.com/compond-file-binary-Gauging-interest-in-a-possible-library-submission-tp4639282p4639328.html
> Sent from the Boost - Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Unsubscribe & other changes: http://lists.boost.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/boost