[witme.sourceforge.net...]

In non technical terms libferris makes the file system and other hierarchical storage systems easier to use. For the geeks out there, libferris is a virtual file system (VFS) that runs in the user address space. The FAQ contains entries related to installation, configuration and the usage of libferris.

As of July 2005 libferris can mount many interesting things ranging from a filesystem from your local Linux kernel through to LDAP, Evolution, PostgreSQL, dbXML, and RDF.

libferris can mount your MySQL database as a filesystem. You then can use the range of Linux command-line tools that work on filesystems - e.g. grep, find, etc.

Additionally, libferris has it's own tools for indexing and searching content.

libferris can mount the following:

*http
*ftp
*berkeley db4
*sleepycats dbxml (libferris 1.1.11+)
*video dvd
*edb
*eet
*tdb
*gdbm
*ssh
*rpm files
*tar files
*sysv IPC (shared memory)
*LDAP
*mbox
*sockets
*mysql
*XML

A good article on libferris that explains the utility of mounting stuff as filesystems. "The World is a libferris Filesystem"

[linuxjournal.com...]

Thanks for posting this..... I can't believe I haven't come across it before.

I use postgreSQL and this is going to be a fun new toy. Mounting a db as a filesystem is an invaluable tool.

At one time I had hopes that proc would do this but this looks so much more promising.