A suggestion: .... == ../../..

[der Mouse]

In article <368 at inta1.UUCP>, tim at introl.uucp (Tim Chase) writes:
> Maybe now that knowledge of "." and ".." is both in the file system
> and the kernel, they ought to be removed from the file system.

Yes!  Unfortunately, the information currently associated with .. must
reside on disk somewhere, though it needn't be a regular directory
entry.

> That would at least save some disk space,

Not enough to matter, I expect.  24 bytes per directory isn't much, and
since we have to save the parent inumber anyway, it's only 20 (22?)
bytes per directory.

> but would probably break programs that read directories.

Depends on how sloppily the program was written.  Does the ignore . and
.. or does it ignore the first two entries?

Anybody know (a) how many directory-reading programs there are and (b)
how many of these just ignore the first two entries instead of doing it
right?

					der Mouse

			uucp: mouse at mcgill-vision.uucp
			arpa: mouse at larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu