Embedding a dired interface in emacs for something other than a file system?

Question

The ROOT data analysis structure, commonly used in high-energy physics, uses a binary file format that has an internal structure, such as a real file system (i.e., folder and files). The ls () method output from the program looks something like this:

KEY: TH1D name1 KEY: TH1D name2 KEY: TH2D name3 .... 

Where are "TH1D" and "TH2D", etc. - just an object type. It would be so nice to view the dired-like file in emacs. I, of course, do not have the energy / time to write an outdated interface for this from scratch (even using the dired.el source). My question is: if possible, how can I just insert the tape into the laid-out interface, reimplementing some functions to make a similar dired-like interface for output, as mentioned above?

Of course, I do not expect a complete solution here, but rather point to examples, textbooks, and other useful information.

Answer 1

archive-mode or tar-mode may be a good starting point.

Answer 2

If it looks quite similar to the file system, perhaps you could write somekind loopback driver. taht actually allows you to mount a data file as a file system, similar to how you can mount an ISO image as a file system. My very limited understanding is that it is not very difficult to do on Linux.

Answer 3

xRootdfs from someone from slac seems to be doing it now. "rootdFS is the Posix file system for the Xrootd storage cluster. It is based on FUSE (file system in user space) and runs in user space."

but I expect that you need root access to load the FUSE module.