[Freedombox-discuss] InDisk -- does this technology exist in open source?

[monkeyiq]

On Wed, 2012-05-30 at 16:57 -0400, Rick C. Hodgin wrote:
> John,
> 
> The key point is assembling files which are presented to the app as 
> files, but after requesting them from different sources over the net.  
> The data also doesn't have to be in the literal file format that's 
> presented to the user.
> 
> Suppose I access an overview.ods spreadsheet file on my K: drive (or 
> /dev/whatever).  That file does not physically exist, but through InDisk 
> is a logical file that assembles data from a MySQL database somewhere, 
> queries whatever it's programmed to through the setup, and prepares the 
> ods spreadsheet file on-the-fly when it's requested.  This allows the 
> calling app to receive a file as it was designed to do, but no longer 
> directly from a regular storage or network source.  It now gets an 
> assembled file which presents as a real file, but all 
> reads/writes/locks/unlocks/etc go through the InDrive layer, which then 
> issues appropriate SQL updates back to the server, or if it's on another 
> format, possibly git push's or whatever.
> 
> Does Linux/UNIX currently allow that as a generic virtual file system 
> ability?

You might like to try out libferris (GPL). It can mount archives like
OASIS files, XML files, online services like google spreadsheets, and
many relational databases. There are many more things it can mount, but
I'm keeping with the example theme.

Along the lines of the theme:
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9373

There are also exposures which let you see a filesystem through an XSLT
filter (and apply a reverse filter). So you can have a spreadsheet that
shows a database table and when written some cells update the table.

FWIW I'm the core hacker on the project, and I have it on my fbox ;-)