/../... (Re: What kinds of things would you want in the GNU OS?)

[Peter da Silva]

In article <3028 at rti.UUCP>, mcm at rti.UUCP (Mike Mitchell) writes:
> What happens if you unlink the '..' entry in the '/' directory
> and mkdir a directory called '..'?  I'll tell you what happens.  You get a
> directory called '..' accessible from '/'.  You can now chdir to '/..' and
> get to a new directory.  Put anything you want in that directory.  Put
> symbolic links pointing to NFS systems there. Put mount points for NFS there.

I love it. It's beautiful. It's clean. It's even damnit consistent. It has a
few problems, but they're minor.

> Of course, if you want to extend a local group of systems into a larger
> collection of systems, just add another '..' directory to the '/..' directory.

This is less friendly. pwd or getcwd() or whatever are gonna get
discombobulated. Too many special cases... make it like area codes, maybe:

	/../nearsystem
	/../virginia/farsystem
-- 
Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation.

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