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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!como.dpie.gov.au!news.gan.net.au!act.news.telstra.net!news.telstra.net!news.att.net.au!news.att.net.hk!newsgate.cuhk.edu.hk!hammer.uoregon.edu!xfer.kren.nm.kr!su-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in1.uu.net!132.158.82.102!hearye.mlb.semi.harris.com!hawk-hcsc.hcsc.com!news!bbadger From: bbadger@jade.ssd.hcsc.com (Bernard Badger) 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 22:27:04 GMT Organization: Concurrent Computer Corp, Ft. Lauderdale, FL Lines: 47 Distribution: inet Message-ID: <BBADGER.97May15182704@jade.ssd.hcsc.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> <337B120F.379E@ford.com> <m267wkvlxo.fsf@mailhost.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de> Reply-To: bbadger@mail.ccur.com NNTP-Posting-Host: jade-3.ssd.hcsc.com In-reply-to: David Kastrup's message of 15 May 1997 16:39:47 +0200 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.shell:45043 comp.os.linux.misc:175581 comp.os.linux.x:61716 comp.unix.bsd.misc:3267 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:41017 gnu.misc.discuss:31304 comp.unix.solaris:106679 In article <m267wkvlxo.fsf@mailhost.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de> David Kastrup <dak@mailhost.neuroinformatik.ruhr-uni-bochum.de> writes: 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. But in Unix, files are associated with names, not the other way 'round. Thus, files do not have a "true" name. That is, the inode doesn't contain any names at all, directory entries contain inode numbers, but there isn't any explicit link in the other direction. Essentially, you have to do a "find" over the whole filesystem to find identical inode numbers. This contrasts with, say OS/2, which has file attributes associated with a file. There is a system-defined "longname" attribute, intended mainly to help with DOS (in)compatibility. A generic feature like attributes is probably better than just adding alias names. -- Bernard A. Badger bbadger@mail.ccur.com 11. Thou shalt not Spam!