network filenames

[Andrew Klossner]

[]

	"If find // to be both concise and from the *users* point of
	view quite indicative of "something special".  It seems that
	only "wizards" get hung up on the point that is normally
	semantically equivalent to / in file names."

No, innocent programs get hung up too.  For example, this shell script
fragment:

	cp input_file $HOME/tmp_file

will, if run by root (with $HOME="/"), expand into:

	cp input_file //tmp_file

and the kernel network code goes off in search of machine "tmp_file".  We
encounter this quite a bit, and have placed several hacks to work
around it (such as setting root's HOME to "/."), but it still bites the
unwary.

  -=- Andrew Klossner   (uunet!tektronix!orca!frip!andrew)      [UUCP]
                        (andrew%frip.wv.tek.com at relay.cs.net)   [ARPA]