and others have asked “What will you do with the metadata when you copy a "file" between file stores?” He suggests that if we preserve the meta-data when an item is copied to a plain old file system (like NTFS) it would be “the cat's meow.“
I agree, and we are working out the details of how this can be done. On NTFS we have alternate streams to work with, and they give us a good place to hide the metadata until the file is copied back into WinFS. We also have to think about FAT and other file systems that do not support alternate streams. There our options are much more limited.
But, WinFS isn't just about file backed items (items that represent an actual file that contains the items “true“ data). We also need to think about items that exist purely in the WinFS store (such as a contact). When an item like this is copied to a non-WinFS store (file system, e-mail attachment, etc.), we need to produce a serialized version of the item that can be used to re-materialize the item when it is copied back into WinFS. Again, we are currently working out the details on how this will be done.
As usual with such things, the devil is in the details....
11/10/2003 11:12 AM
# re: No Meta-Data Up My Sleeve
Well, its kind of the Cat's meow if it retains a link to the moved file if I want it to or doesn't if I don't. I can see situations where a user moves the file to a different computer to archive it, but doesn't really care if any information about that move file is in the current store or not. I can also see times where I'd to link to the moved file (e.g., I pushed that file to a shared server.)
A terrabyte of disk storage on the client might be the reality when WinFS hits... or it might not. <grin>
11/12/2003 6:57 AM
# re: No Meta-Data Up My Sleeve
I would have thought that the file based version of calender and contact Winfs records should be vCard and vCal.
Or at least an xml file containing the schema data from the database.
So the idea is I can sync a set of WinFS records with a USB Key, that uses FAT and for each item it will create a file and a metadata file. Then I can attach the key to another Longhorn machine and it will sync eveything back into the database? Hoepfully it only updates files that have actually changed, to save on the flash memory rewrites.
Looking forward to that, it'll be good for transporting sourcecode files between home and work.