Virtual Filesystem (was: Adding ftputil to the Python distribution?)

[Jacob Smullyan]

In article <aqgi7e$j67$0 at 216.39.172.122>, Bengt Richter wrote:
> On 8 Nov 2002 01:20:16 -0800, stephan.diehl at gmx.net (Stephan Diehl) wrote:
>> I'd really like to see a vfs in the standard
>>python distribution.
> I too. But I believe any given implementation will implicitly reflect
> conventions with respect to operations in abstract name space, and I think
> that ought to be laid out in a PEP before adopting any particular implementation.
>
> Otherwise there is likely to be special limitations, e.g., not being able
> to delegate parsing of path tails to other vfs's mounted within the first, etc.

The Skunk vfs actually does do that on demand, but not automatically,
as I believe both gnome-vfs and emacs will do when it finds an archive
file.  I simply didn't need or want that behavior, but I recognize of
course that a general purpose vfs should have that ability.  The vfs
cited was written to satisfy some immediate needs, with a little extra
generality thrown in around the periphery; it was not designed with a
view towards solving every problem that a vfs might solve, but might
be suggestive to someone working on a more ambitious solution.

> The vfs above is very close to what I was talking about recently. But not
> exactly, and not quite from the same POV. And any discussion of general
> or genericized (v)file access will garner reminders that lisp has a lot
> of prior art ;-)

I'd be interested if you could enlarge a little on the subject of LISP
genericized file access, at least to the point of providing clues for
how a Lisp neophyte might research it.