Re: mtools extfs script patch proposal

[Pavel Roskin <proski gnu org>]

Hello!

> Yes, you need to create the link like this to let it work (I mean the C: 
> mtools drive filesystem entry):
> 
> su -
> cd /usr/share/mc/extfs
> ln -s a c
> echo "c:" >>extfs.ini
> exit

I don't like this approach.  It means registering a separate extfs for
each drive.  If we are going to support all letters, it will be 26 scripts
or symlinks.  It's almost like having a separate script for every zip
file.

You are trying to make it work in a wrong way and then complain that it
doesn't work right.  I know the script itself takes the drive letter from
its name.  But extfs doesn't know that.

I would prefer to have one single script for mtools and no symlinks.  It 
doesn't matter if the syntax looks more complicated - you can always add 
translations from a: (and every other letter) to the new syntax.

What if we implement something like this:

  VFS name                mtools/dos name

/#dos:a/                  a:\
/#dos:c/dos/sys.com       c:\dos\sys.com

That would require one script, "dos" (maybe we should use some other name 
for it), and it would interpret the first part of the path as the disk 
name.

Technically, you just rename "a" to "dos", and add a function that
converts patch to disk with path.  Instead of "$disk:/$path" you write
"$diskpath($path)" where diskpath is the new function - perl calculates
functions inside double quotes.

Once you have done that, update vfs_translate_url() to support all letter
and use the new syntax.  Now the hard part - test it and fix the bugs if
any.  That's it!

> > What are you trying to achieve?
> 
> I would like to have the opportunity to browse all my mtools drives 
> without the need of the extfs.ini and creating symlinks after rpm -i 
> mc*.rpm.

Yes, that's a reasonable request.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin