*BSD News Article 95417


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From: David Kastrup <dak@mailhost.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.x,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.unix.solaris
Subject: Re: unix acronyms -collecting a list?
Date: 15 May 1997 16:39:47 +0200
Organization: Institut fuer Neuroinformatik, Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum, Germany
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Vince Scarafino <vscarafi@ford.com> writes:

> 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.

Then use hard links. "a file having multiple names associated with it"
is hard links, quite clearly.


-- 
David Kastrup                                     Phone: +49-234-700-5570
Email: dak@neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de       Fax: +49-234-709-4209
Institut für Neuroinformatik, Universitätsstr. 150, 44780 Bochum, Germany