Recursive Filesystem Entries

#1

Post by katee » Tue, Aug 29, 2017, 3:52 PM UTC

Recursive Filesystem Entries
blog.wesleyac.com

Re: Recursive Filesystem Entries

#2

Post by amenghra » Thu, Aug 31, 2017, 10:20 PM UTC

Fun!

I once made a Fat filesystem driver in JavaScript: https://www.quaxio.com/fat12js/index.htm

Re: Recursive Filesystem Entries

#3

Post by koala_man » Thu, Aug 31, 2017, 11:30 PM UTC

It's a FAT12 fs where a cycle has been hex edited into the file data to produce a 4GB repeating file on a tiny fs. Cute!

I had to read quite far before realizing it wasn't an over-explained article on sparse files.

Re: Recursive Filesystem Entries

#4

Post by userbinator » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 12:11 AM UTC

One may wonder why the filesystem driver doesn't have cycle detection, but the fact that filesystem structures are generally considered trusted data, a cycle detection algorithm would add overhead and complexity, and the inherent (4GB) limit means that this is something better left to an application like chkdsk/fsck.

FAT is still the most widely used, lowest-common-denominator, non-proprietary filesystem so it's not going away anytime soon.

Re: Recursive Filesystem Entries

#5

Post by amenghra » Fri, Sep 01, 2017, 6:34 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #4

One may wonder why the filesystem driver doesn't have cycle detection, but the fact that filesystem structures are generally considered trusted data, a cycle detection algorithm would add overhead and complexity, and the inherent (4GB) limit means that this is something better left to an application like chkdsk/fsck. FAT is still the most widely used, lowest-common-denominator, non-proprietary filesystem so it's not…

It's proprietary in some way: it's patent encumbeted (lookup Microsoft vs TomTom and Microsoft vs Motorola).