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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu!jobone!dailyplanet.srl.ford.com!eccws1.dearborn.ford.com!news From: Vince Scarafino <vscarafi@ford.com> Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.x,alt.os.linux,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.unix.solaris Subject: Re: unix acronyms -collecting a list? Date: Thu, 15 May 1997 09:39:27 -0400 Organization: Ford Motor Company Lines: 22 Message-ID: <337B120F.379E@ford.com> References: <5kd2ng$c8b$1@rzsun02.rrz.uni-hamburg.de> <5l3c2f$i1j@pasilla.bbnplanet.com> <337A003F.6A7B@ncofsi.com> <3379A05E.21EB@UK.Sun.COM.PLEASE.REMOVE.THIS.TO.REPLY> <337A149B.15C52A4F@uci.edu> Reply-To: vscarafi@ford.com NNTP-Posting-Host: pms045.pms.ford.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01C (Win95; I) Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.shell:44987 comp.os.linux.misc:175397 comp.os.linux.x:61610 alt.os.linux:21169 comp.unix.bsd.misc:3239 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:40941 gnu.misc.discuss:31277 comp.unix.solaris:106573 Christopher Grayce wrote: > > Something interesting to me is that Multics had full > commands as well as the abbreviations, e.g. > > print_working_directory <-> pwd > > You could use either. Funny that now when we can much > more easily afford the overhead to have both it's not > done. > > CJG That's because Multics supported the concept of "adnames," which allowed a file to have multiple names associated with it. The neat thing about this was that in many instances, you could type out what you were looking for (using the underscore to represent a blank between words) and you'd actually find out there was a command with that name and it answered your question. Adname support is something I miss. Soft links in unix have subtle differences that drive you crazy if you try to use them for this purpose.