[BusyBox] off topic: 'device table support' for mkcramfs?

[Stewart Brodie]

In message <20020503214243.GA16225 at codepoet.org>
          Erik Andersen <andersen at codepoet.org> wrote:

> On Fri May 03, 2002 at 11:22:29PM +0200, Jonas Holmberg wrote:
> > OK, I see now that they work about the same way. And I guess
> > that our install could be changed to handle one central
> > device_table file instead of one metafile per dir also. But the
> > ability to ignore files comes in handy, at least for us as we
> > install tons of libs in /lib (sometimes we use glibc...) and
> > decide which should actually go in the final image after all
> > applications have been installed.
> 
> I see.  What I do is install all libraries and include files
> and such into a separate staging directory, and I then cherry
> pick the required libraries and install them from the staging 
> dir to the target directory.  That way, it isn't mkfs's problem,

In fact, one useful thing that might be added is to allow the device table
file to remove things from the file system as well as add and modify
permissions.

One facility not currently provided by mkfs.jffs2 that I have implemented via
a small perl wrapper is to permit filenames to be wildcarded.  The perl code
simply globs wildcarded entries so that I can set the file permissions on
groups of files the way I want them without having to change the device table
file every time the list of libraries in my root filesystem changes.

If people are considering unifying the file format, then retaining the
ability to simply change permissions of earlier objects in this way is one
facility that I would like to see retained.


-- 
Stewart Brodie, Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology PLC
645 Newmarket Road
Cambridge, CB5 8PB, United Kingdom         WWW: http://www.pacemicro.com/