From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
From: "Douglas A. Gwyn" <DAGwyn@null.net>
Message-ID: <3B0BC443.704D071@null.net>
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References: <20010522232637.ADF0D199C0@mail.cse.psu.edu>
Subject: Re: [9fans] software quality and popularity
Date: Wed, 23 May 2001 14:57:01 +0000
Topicbox-Message-UUID: a62d8c8c-eac9-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025

jmk@plan9.bell-labs.com wrote:
> From STAT(5):
>  A wstat request can explicitly avoid modifying some proper-
>  ties of the file by providing explicit ``don't touch'' val-
>  ues in the stat data that is sent: zero-length strings for
>  text values and the maximum unsigned value of appropriate
>  size for integral values.  As a special case, if all the
>  entries in a Twstat message are ``don't touch'' values, the
>  server may interpret it as a request to guarantee that the
>  contents of the associated file are committed to stable
>  storage before the Rwstat message is returned.  (Consider
>  the message to mean, ``make the state of the file exactly
>  what it claims to be.'')

Oh, great, more usurping of data values for in-band
signalling of exceptional conditions.