[Very OT] Tiny vNode

Okay, I'm only sharing this little thing because I thought it was funny in cute and kind of sad way. Feel free to move on...



I gave one of the guys I'm working with a sort of "cheat sheet" examining the exported data an imaginary API expects about a week ago. (Yes, it is loosely based on the POSIX "inode" expectations.)

This was basically the information he got:

Code:

---

type (six different types)
format (short format references or long format references)
packed (true or false)
owner id
group id
size in bytes
time the vnode was last accessed
time the referenced material was last modified
time the vnode itself was last changed
[References]

---

Today he busted on me while I was eating breakfast looking quite mad and proclaimed "IT CAN'T BE DONE!" at the top of his lungs before stealing a slice of bacon.

The poor guy has spent the last week trying to pack all of the above (for a 16 bit system), a 32 bit offset, and the necessary references (dependent on the type) into a 128 bit structure. Yea, he thought I said bits instead of bytes.

Soma

Arguably, 16 bits would be all he needed.

Code:

---

struct data {
  foo* bar;
};

---

Against impossible odds, cheat.