*BSD News Article 12750


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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.development
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!caen!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!menudo.uh.edu!uuneo!sugar!peter
From: peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: A challenge to all true kernel hackers - conditional symlinks.
Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900
Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1993 05:01:24 GMT
Message-ID: <C3v4MD.LFE@sugar.neosoft.com>
References: <C3ow4H.FID@BitBlocks.com> <C3qzGI.38q@sugar.neosoft.com> <1nqnchINNerd@life.ai.mit.edu>
Lines: 22

In article <1nqnchINNerd@life.ai.mit.edu> mycroft@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Charles Hannum) writes:
> In article <C3qzGI.38q@sugar.neosoft.com> peter@NeoSoft.com (Peter da
> Silva) writes:
> > How about using "//" within a symlink to indicate that the next
> > component is a name?

> >	  ln -s /usr/i18n//lang/docs /usr/docs

> This would be ugly,

So would any hack you can come up with that hides logicals in the namespace.

> confuse Emacs, and break current programs.

Why? These file names are *only* in symbolic links, which programs should
treat as textual substitutions. They're not legal file names (see POSIX
1003.1) so there's no conflict.
-- 
Peter da Silva.  <peter@sugar.neosoft.com>.
 `-_-'   Oletko halannut suttasi tänään?
  'U`    
Tarjoilija, tämä ateria elää vielä.