Conference tnpubs::nacleaf

12.0. "Restoring Interleaf files is tricky!" by INTER::JONG (Steve Jong/NaC Pubs) Thu Oct 19 1989 16:13

    If you look at the icons on your desktop, all appears simple enough.  
    You have a lot of flexibility in naming documents, folders, drawers,
    and cabinets, more than what VMS allows, which I, for one, appreciate
    and exploit.  For example, on my desktop I have a cabinet called
    "Steve's stuff" and a chapter in my book called "What's DECmcc?" (It's
    the Macintosh upbringing, I guess, to put everything away in a folder.)

    But all this is only a facade layered onto VMS, which doesn't use 
    lowercase letters, or even accept spaces and apostrophes, in filenames.
    Interleaf uses its own quirky file structure, probably akin to Unix 
    but certainly unlike VMS.  Its backup method is different from the VMS
    version concept.  It translates different icon types into different
    filenames. (Change a drawer into a cabinet and you've changed the name
    of a directory from SOMETHING_DRW.DIR into SOMETHING_CAB.DIR, for
    example.)  We are advised to use books and sub-books, which Interleaf
    translates into directories and sub-directories (deeper and deeper!).
    And Interleaf maps the user-friendly names you've used into squat VMS
    filenames, such as, in my case, WHAT_S_DECMCC_.DOC.

    If you never have to poke around, all is handled invisibly by
    Interleaf, and you needn't worry about the reality under the facade. 
    Interleaf seems happy enough dealing with apostrophes and spaces; so am
    I.  Clearly, these file and directory names were not meant to be read
    by humans. But sometimes humans have to read them anyway.  Why, just
    this week I deleted a lot of stuff out of my chapter, stuff I've
    decided is better off saved somewhere else.  The chapter's still there,
    but by now I've saved it so often I've pushed the backup version that
    had the material I deleted right off the table.  So I contacted CCD and
    asked for an older version of my file.  I gave the exact pathname,
    which was damn tough to get, let me tell you.  But even with the
    correct pathname, the operator took one look at the listing and went
    off the deep end!  She was completely unable to deal with the
    pathname, thinking,completely erroneously, that I was some sort of
    madman; and she also couldn't distinguish the file from its backups
    and links.

    I could see her problem when she showed me the backup listing.  The
    file, which on my Interleaf desktop is found by this admittedly deep
    but not, I claim, unreasonable structure:

Desktop
	Steve's stuff (cabinet)
		MCC (drawer)
			Drafts (folder)
				Introduction 1st (book)
					Chapters (sub-book)
						What's DECmcc? (document)

    translated into Interleaf-on-VMS, and taking into account backups and 
    checkpoint files, becomes a nightmare:

Directory USER$653:[JONG.DESKTOP.STEVE_S_STUFF_CAB.MCC_DRW.DRAFTS_FDR.INTRODUCTI
ON_1ST_BOO.CHAPTERS_BOO]                                                        
                                                                                
WHAT_S_DECMCC_$A.DOC;1             908  <--- Backup file
WHAT_S_DECMCC_$H.DOC;1               2  <--- She thought this was it     
WHAT_S_DECMCC_$I.DOC;1               7  <--- God knows what this is             
WHAT_S_DECMCC_.DOC;1               941  <--- The file I really wanted
                                                                                
Total of 4 files, 1858 blocks.                                                  

    I am not complaining about her confusion; I sympathize completely. I am
    not talking about our esteemed colleagues Peter, Jim, and Bette Jean. I
    do not write this to suggest that the Ops people aren't smart enough to
    cope with Interleaf.  I write this to warn you that if you need to 
    restore an Interleaf file, you'd better be prepared for a lot of grief.

Interleaf (as you mentioned) has a different way of storing files.  I guess it
all depends on what you are use to, but each file has a distinct purpose.
For example:

  	filename.doc		the document
	filename$a.doc;1	the backup version
	filename$b.doc;1	the checkpoint version
	filename$c.doc;1	the crash version
	filename$h.doc;1	an autonumbering and autoreferencing summary 
                                file

	filename$i.doc;1	an indexing and TOC summary file
	filename$1.doc;1	a document whose name is similar or identical
                                to another
	filename$1$a.doc;1	a backup document
	$filename.doc;1		an attribute file

There is a definite reason to be confused as we don't see this in VMS.

Bette Jean