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

[bnewbold at robocracy.org]

The FUSE ("filesystem in userspace") library/module is implemented in 
many/most *NIX operating systems, and would allow a specific on-the-fly 
virtual file access like you describe to be implemented in a popular 
programming language (bindings for python, ruby, etc). "Classic" FUSE 
examples include reading and editing Wikipedia articles as files, storing 
files as Gmail attachments, logging of filesystem access, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_in_Userspace

UNIX has has always been about "any/everything as a file", and the plan9 
operating system took this even further. There are many, many specific- 
and general-purpose "vritual file system" hacks (such as 
files-as-directories, nested mounting, ramdisk mounting, the proc (process 
information) and sys (system/kernel information) filesystems, the device 
filesystem, etc), FUSE is just the most recent incarnation/library. The 
pizza-bilities are endless!

-bryan

On Wed, 30 May 2012, 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?
>
> Best regards,
> Rick C. Hodgin