On Tuesday 13 March 2001 11:52, Duane Maxwell wrote:

> There's actually a lot of interesting stuff in the file system we were
> defining.  Basically, we extended Apple's dual-fork files with n-fork
> files, indexed with four-character codes (Apple's OSType).  The
> conventional file is the 'data' fork, which is what you get if you simply
> open the file.  The libraries could be files with a 'libs' fork, with
> extended  ELF segments (in order to include fetch information) indexed by
> MD5.

Windows/NT's NTFS file system supports multiple data streams, as well. 
However, I don't know that anyone has done anything with them (other than 
storing Apple resource forks on them, of course). We had to provide for them 
in the design of the Microsoft Tape Format. You'd think that if they were so 
useful, people would use them. (I don't know whether the Win32 API gives any 
access to them, though; that may get in the way of widespread use, since many 
people don't like to use the undocumented Nt layer).

Of course, Windows still hasn't grasped the idea of "file type" (as distinct 
from "file extension") yet. They could use one of the forks to store file 
type, creator, etc. data (as, I believe, OS/2 did).

-- 
Ned Konz
currently: Stanwood, WA
email:     ned at bike-nomad.com
homepage:  http://bike-nomad.com