protofile

Documentation

Overview

Package protofile implements temporary files that don't appear in filesystem namespace until closed.

Unfortunately this only works on Linux with flag O_TMPFILE. In other cases a graceful degradiation is attempted, which results in the well-known dot-files (like ".gitignore").

Unlike with traditional files with {CreateNew, Write, Close}, proto files have a lifecycle {IntentNew, Write, Persist or Zap}. While a traditional file "emerges" the instant it is created with a name, "proto files" are named only after having been "persisted" (which closes them).

Streaming of file contents is currently not supported.

Index

• Variables
• type ProtoFile
• type ProtoFileBehaver

Variables

var IntentNew func(path, filename string) (ProtoFileBehaver, error) = intentNewUniversal

IntentNew "creates" a file which, ideally, is nameless at that point.

Types

type ProtoFile

type ProtoFile struct {
	*os.File
	// contains filtered or unexported fields
}

ProtoFile represents a file that can be discarded or named after having been written. (With normal files such an committment is made ex ante, on creation.)

type ProtoFileBehaver

type ProtoFileBehaver interface {
	// Discards a file that has not yet been persisted/closed, else a NOP.
	Zap() error

	// Emerges the file under the initially given name into observable namespace on disk.
	// This closes the file.
	Persist() error

	io.WriteCloser
}

ProtoFileBehaver is implemented by all variants of ProtoFile.

Use this in pointers to any ProtoFile you want to utilize.