Re: [icnrg] icnrg Digest, Vol 101, Issue 8

[Ken Calvert <[e-mail]>]

>>> FLIC describes a single file.  No.  By definition, FLIC must always describe two files: the manifest and the data.
>> 
>>   I think you mean to say "FLIC specification must always describe two types" here, right?
> 
> Well, the Manifest describes how to assemble all the pieces of the manifest into the correct order such that one can derive the correct order of data pointers from it.  The manifest is, at its base, an ordered list of pointers to data, plus a little extra for security context and maybe an annotation.  To me, that is the manifest file.  I could give you a single file (say json or binary) that conveys the same exact information as gets encoded in the manifest tree.  The manifest tree exists because we want to limit the size of the data transfer unit.
> 
> But this is a semantic point not really that important.  We could call it the manifest type or whatever.  My point is there's two things being conveyed: the manifest (data pointers) and the data itself.

My point was that I'm not sure the term "file" has a precise definition in this context - or at least, I'm not sure that I understand it the way you were using it.
(Perhaps this was why Christian introduced the "blob" terminology.  Networking has now been around long enough that many otherwise-useful terms have baggage that renders them problematic.)

But I agree that it's a minor point!

Ken