From:	jazz AT softway DOT com (Jason Zions)
Subject:	Re: Feedback needed on proposed cygwin feature
1 Dec 1997 19:51:24 -0800 :
Message-ID:	<348313F1.45C1076E.cygnus.gnu-win32@opennt.com>
References:	<EKHt00 DOT DM8 AT bbc DOT com>
Mime-Version:	1.0
To:	cgf AT bbc DOT com
Cc:	gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com

It strikes me that the best place for per-binary attributed like this
would be in the binary itself. I don't know how closely cygwin's exec()
looks at the program being exec'd; if it looks at the program header,
there should be a way to squirrel the attributes away there someplace.

Many "real Unix" systems do just this sort of thing; e.g. chatr in
HP-UX, which is used to alter a.out attributes.

Pro: 
  a) attributes are *really* a part of the binary; symlinks and
hardlinks all pointing to the same bits on the disk will behave the
same, while name-based approaches may be inconsistent

  b) makes it easier for attributes to work over network mounts (when
filesystems can be mounted in different places)

Con:
  a) extracting the attributes from the binary may be slower

  b) may be hard to find a "safe place" to stash the bits

Jason
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