Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!oliveb!mipos3!omepd!merlyn
From: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Symlinks and ..
Message-ID: <5270@omepd.UUCP>
Date: 27 Nov 89 19:58:55 GMT
References: <2755@munnari.oz.au> <12407@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com>
Sender: news@omepd.UUCP
Reply-To: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz)
Organization: Stonehenge; netaccess via Intel, Hillsboro, Oregon, USA
Lines: 25
In-reply-to: ekrell@hector.UUCP (Eduardo Krell)

In article <12407@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com>, ekrell@hector (Eduardo Krell) writes:
| ".." should be treated as a logical operator that moves you one level
| closer to the root by stripping the last component off your current
| working directory (which is whatever path you used to get to where
| you are). This preserves the "/usr/foo/bar/.. == /usr/foo" paradigm.
| 
| Besides, this is the only sensible interpreation of ".." on implementations
| where ".." does not exist physically as a directory entry (which is
| not required by POSIX).

Well, let's take a look at that.  Current unicies do not maintain a
path to the current working directory... just a handle on the inode.
Do you propose maintaining a real path throughout all chdir(2) calls?
What if a portion of the path gets renamed?  Does the path become
invalid?  (a new errno error: ECWDGONE == "The current directory is no
longer valid".)

Nope.  ".." will probably mean what it means for a real long time. :-)

Just another UNIX hacker,
-- 
/== Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ====\
| on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Hillsboro, Oregon, USA, Sol III  |
| merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn	         |
\== Cute Quote: "Welcome to Oregon... Home of the California Raisins!" ==/