Improvements to DOSFS

[Thomas Doerfler]

Hello,

today I have added three PRs (439-441) to RTEMS gnatsweb. 
These PR have patches for the following issues:

1. Adding rename functionality to DOSFS

2. Improvment of data write speed

3. Flush of temporary data buffer when closing a file to make 
removing of media or poweroff of system without "unmount" more 
reliable

Here are the details:

1. Rename functionality
=======================
The newlib "rename" function first tries to add a hard link 
from the "new" filename to the original file, then it removes 
the original filename. Since DOSFS does not support hard 
links, rename does not work under DOSFS.

I have nevertheless added a "pseudo" link functionality to the 
RTEMS DOSFS implementation. The added link functionality 
creates a new directory entry with the new filename, then it 
disconnects the actual file from the old filename entry and 
connects the file to the new entry. 

In this situation, the new entry already points to the file 
data, the old entry is modified, so it looks like an "empty" 
file. This is not exactly how "link" should work, because it 
actually modifies the source node, but it is as close as 
possible to the functionality required. I have ensured that 
the file system is still in a valid state when a link has been 
established.

When newlibs "rename" function finally deletes the old 
filename, this "empty" entry is removed.

2. Improvement of write data speed
==================================

During file write operation, DOSFS needs more FAT clusters 
from time to time. The current implementation of FAT12/FAT16 
always searches the FAT from the beginning for free clusters, 
while FAT32 already searches from the last position where it 
had found a free cluster.

For FAT12/FAT16 devices, you can see that the write data rate 
is reduced, when the device contains more data, because the 
search for new clusters takes a big amount of time (cluster 
search sometimes requires reading different FAT sectors from 
disk).

Our patch (developed by Peter Rasmussen) uses the more 
intelligent FAT32 mechanism also for FAT12/FAT16.


3. Flush of temporary data buffer when closing a file 
=====================================================

Appart from the bdbuf sector cache, each filesystem also 
contains a one sector buffer in the "fs_info" structure. 
Unlike the bdbuf disk cache, which is swapped back to disk 
after some time by the "swapout" task, this buffer is not 
flushed after a timeout, but only when requested (e.g. by 
unmount) or when it is needed for a different sector.

This patch ensures, that this buffer will be flushed back to 
the bdbuf layer during a "fat_file_close" operation.

After this modification, I have no longer experienced 
inconsistent FAT disks, when I have ensured that the system 
was running for at least some seconds after the last file 
written has been closed, even when I did not call unmount.

Any comments welcome, 

	Thomas Doerfler.

--------------------------------------------
IMD Ingenieurbuero fuer Microcomputertechnik
Thomas Doerfler           Herbststrasse 8
D-82178 Puchheim          Germany
email:    Thomas.Doerfler at imd-systems.de
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