Re: Proposal for Remote Execution

[Jim MacArthur <jim macarthur codethink co uk>]

On 11/04/18 21:37, Jürg Billeter wrote:
> Virtual File System API
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> As a second phase I'm proposing to introduce a virtual file system API that
> both BuildStream core and element plugins can use in place of path-based
> file system operations provided by the OS. The goal is to allow transparent
> and efficient manipulation of Merkle trees.
>
> The API consists of an abstract Directory class that supports creating
> directories, copying/renaming/moving files and whole directory trees, and
> importing files from a local path. See also the existing `utils` functions
> `link_files` and `copy_files`, equivalent operations need to be supported.

You explicitly say importing files but not exporting - do you intend 
there to be any means to copy files or directories out of a virtual 
directory to a local path, as we currently do when running `bst checkout`?