6 ms·

luckily, you can implement the idea on top of existing systems. e.g. fuse or plan9/inferno's 9p/styx fs protocol. "File indexing and searching for Plan 9", ht

by mjl 17y ago

luckily, you can implement the idea on top of existing systems. e.g. fuse or plan9/inferno's 9p/styx fs protocol. "File indexing and searching for Plan 9", http://lsub.org/ls/export/tags.pdf http://lsub.org/ls/export/tags.pdf describes mostly text indexing, but the interface to searching is through a file system (unfortunately not described in much detail at first glance). only now do i remember that wrote something related once: attfs, http://www.ueber.net/code/r/attrfs http://www.ueber.net/code/r/attrfs. that's for inferno, using the styx/9p protocol. i never polished it, am not currently using it, and the interface the file system provides is not ready for casual file browsing, though that's mostly a detail (from an amount of code point of view). the things stored are strings though, not files. but the illusion that it stores files is easy to build.

silentbicycle 17y ago
There's also libixp, a port of plan9's 9p to Unix. (http://libs.suckless.org/libixp http://libs.suckless.org/libixp) I've only ever used it with wmii, but I've been looking for an excuse to write a Lua wrapper for it. :)
- uriel 17y ago
  There are many 9P implementations (most of which run on *nix systems): http://9p.cat-v.org/implementations http://9p.cat-v.org/implementations I think somebody was working on one in lua, but I don't know if they finished it. If you write a Lua implementation or a lua wrapper for an existing C implementation let me know.
  - silentbicycle 17y ago
    Will do. (I'll probably wrap libixp.)
    - dejan 17y ago
      Please let us know if you shoot some code. It could be a good open source project, according to the interest. I'd personally go for defining a community whitepaper / wiki maybe for the concept and solutions. What do you think? In the mean time we can build some prototypes on different platforms. The real reason why we don't know how and if this interaction model would work in practice - is the obvious absence of implementations.
      - silentbicycle 17y ago
        I'm looking at it now. I'm working on OpenBSD, and just updated the port to libixp-0.5 - that'll get posted once I test it more. A Lua client library for libixp should be pretty straightforward, looking at the source for ixpc. I might have that together this afternoon (particularly if my fiancee continues napping ;) ). As for a server library, I'm still thinking about it, but passing an init function a table with callbacks for the various messages would be pretty straightforward - similar to LuaExpat's design (http://www.keplerproject.org/luaexpat/manual.html http://www.keplerproject.org/luaexpat/manual.html). I'm silentbicycle on twitter, FWIW.
  - silentbicycle 17y ago
    I have a very early Lua client library for libixp up at http://silentbicycle.com/projects/lua-ixp-0.1.tar.gz http://silentbicycle.com/projects/lua-ixp-0.1.tar.gz now. The walk function (which returns an iterator, successively returning tables with each file's stats in a directory) is not complete, it's terminating after the first file sometimes. I'll smooth that out once the server side of the library is together and testing can be self-contained. I'd like to work on the server library sometime next week, but I'm pretty busy. Is there a better place to contact you with updates?
mjl 17y ago
hah, and then i remembered hearing this talk at the iwp9 in madrid: "ConcepOntoFs: A Semantic File System for Inferno", http://lsub.org/iwp9/cready/abheyshahplan9.pdf http://lsub.org/iwp9/cready/abheyshahplan9.pdf this paper also has references to other papers on the topic.
- dejan 17y ago
  Seems they make stuff just much more complicated there. I'll give it a better shot, but for now, new commands for the filesystem, it's just crazy. I want my grandparents to know how to use this, and I remember I always had to explain the concepts of cabinets, folders and files. This is why I over stress the need for use cases. The reasoning behind this idea is how I use my files, the intuitive processes to organize and later find, the flow of thought and command.

by mjl 17y ago

silentbicycle 17y ago

There's also libixp, a port of plan9's 9p to Unix. (http://libs.suckless.org/libixp http://libs.suckless.org/libixp) I've only ever used it with wmii, but I've been looking for an excuse to write a Lua wrapper for it. :)

uriel 17y ago
There are many 9P implementations (most of which run on *nix systems): http://9p.cat-v.org/implementations http://9p.cat-v.org/implementations I think somebody was working on one in lua, but I don't know if they finished it. If you write a Lua implementation or a lua wrapper for an existing C implementation let me know.
- silentbicycle 17y ago
  Will do. (I'll probably wrap libixp.)
  - dejan 17y ago
    Please let us know if you shoot some code. It could be a good open source project, according to the interest. I'd personally go for defining a community whitepaper / wiki maybe for the concept and solutions. What do you think? In the mean time we can build some prototypes on different platforms. The real reason why we don't know how and if this interaction model would work in practice - is the obvious absence of implementations.
    - silentbicycle 17y ago
      I'm looking at it now. I'm working on OpenBSD, and just updated the port to libixp-0.5 - that'll get posted once I test it more. A Lua client library for libixp should be pretty straightforward, looking at the source for ixpc. I might have that together this afternoon (particularly if my fiancee continues napping ;) ). As for a server library, I'm still thinking about it, but passing an init function a table with callbacks for the various messages would be pretty straightforward - similar to LuaExpat's design (http://www.keplerproject.org/luaexpat/manual.html http://www.keplerproject.org/luaexpat/manual.html). I'm silentbicycle on twitter, FWIW.
- silentbicycle 17y ago
  I have a very early Lua client library for libixp up at http://silentbicycle.com/projects/lua-ixp-0.1.tar.gz http://silentbicycle.com/projects/lua-ixp-0.1.tar.gz now. The walk function (which returns an iterator, successively returning tables with each file's stats in a directory) is not complete, it's terminating after the first file sometimes. I'll smooth that out once the server side of the library is together and testing can be self-contained. I'd like to work on the server library sometime next week, but I'm pretty busy. Is there a better place to contact you with updates?

mjl 17y ago

hah, and then i remembered hearing this talk at the iwp9 in madrid: "ConcepOntoFs: A Semantic File System for Inferno", http://lsub.org/iwp9/cready/abheyshahplan9.pdf http://lsub.org/iwp9/cready/abheyshahplan9.pdf this paper also has references to other papers on the topic.

dejan 17y ago
Seems they make stuff just much more complicated there. I'll give it a better shot, but for now, new commands for the filesystem, it's just crazy. I want my grandparents to know how to use this, and I remember I always had to explain the concepts of cabinets, folders and files. This is why I over stress the need for use cases. The reasoning behind this idea is how I use my files, the intuitive processes to organize and later find, the flow of thought and command.