http://yarchive.net/comp/linux/reiser4.html

Jamie Lokier renames the thread and argues (2004-09-01): [The argument for fs assistance in handling archives](https://marc.info/?l=reiserfs-devel&m=109406945802488&w=2):

"Now, why would we bother with all this? I see three reasons: convenience, time efficiency, and storage efficiency."

- convenience: nice to just "cd" into a file
- time efficiency: many document file formats are archives - whan manipulating individual parts, it might be more efficient if the FS/OS caches the decompressed state so that individual accesses do not require complete recompression.
- space efficiency: the OS can optimize storage if it can decide whether to store files unpacked or packed (?)

[Linus Torvalds answers](https://marc.info/?l=reiserfs-devel&m=109407198428857&w=2):

"absolute coherency just isn't an option, because it's just not possible to try to atomically update a view at the same time somebody else is writing to the "main file"."

[Hans Reiser seems to suggest that multiple subfiles might be seen as a single coherent "commit" (?)](https://marc.info/?l=linux-fsdevel&m=109410933111191&w=2)

- https://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=109447713731993&w=2
- "oh, then everything is a file": https://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=109447811417137&w=2
- https://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=109448101219009&w=2

[2007-04-23, Theodore Tso](http://yarchive.net/comp/linux/reiser4.html): "One of the big problems of using a filesystem as a DB is the system call overheads.  If you use huge numbers of tiny files, then each attempt read an atom of information from the DB takes three system calls --- an open(), read(), and close(), with all of the overheads in terms of dentry and inode cache."

- 2007-05-22: Miklos Szeredi suggests it again (without Reiser4): https://marc.info/?l=linux-fsdevel&m=117986025907108
  - use for archive files
  - "Others might suggest accessing streams, resource forks or extended attributes through such an interface"
  - Patch, based on avfs

Examples from related work for using FAD for:

- [audio CDs](https://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=109448293230669&w=2)
-