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Date: Fri, 8 Jan 2010 10:45:55 +0100
From: Corinna Vinschen <corinna-cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: [ANNOUNCEMENT] New: {attr/libattr-devel/libattr1}-2.4.43-1
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Yaakov,

On Jan  7 22:07, Yaakov S wrote:
> On 28/12/2009 04:37, Corinna Vinschen wrote:
> >"libattr-devel" contains the libraries and header files needed to
> >develop programs which make use of extended attributes.  This package
> >provides the libs and headers required to develop using the SGI IRIX
> >compatibility interface.
> 
> Corinna,
> 
> Would you be willing to do the same for the "acl" package (from the
> same location)?  It has the same issues that you already dealt with
> porting "attr" (partial overlap with Cygwin itself, the same build
> system, etc.).  libacl together with libattr can be used by
> coreutils, gnome-vfs, libarchive, (g)vim, and kdelibs.

That's not possible.  SGI's libacl is an implementation of the abandoned
POSIX.1e draft based on extended attributes.  Since Linux implements
ACLs as xattrs as well, it's easy to port the package to Linux.
However, on Windows, ACLs are different from xattrs and have their own
API.

Cygwin provides the Solaris API and many tools -- coreutils or vim, for
instance -- test in their configury if the ACL API provided by the
system is the Solaris API or the POSIX API and then use the appropriate
functions.

What we could do is to implement the POSIX API within Cygwin.  Since
we're already providing the Solaris API my incentive to do that is very,
very low.  Well, I would certainly not refuse patches.

Another way to get the POSIX API would be to port libapi to use the
Solaris API under the hood, rather than xattr calls.  It's just that
http://cygwin.com/acronyms/#SHTDI


Corinna

-- 
Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Project Co-Leader          cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Red Hat

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