Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: "//" in pathnames---standard? & why?
Message-ID: <3090@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 28 Mar 90 21:01:09 GMT
References: <4029@iis.UUCP>
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 9

>Is it standard to use two slashes "//" instead of one slash "/" in
>absolute pathnames to represent the root directory?

No!  In fact, POSIX specifically says that "A 'pathname' that begins
with two successive 'slashes' may be interpreted in an
implementation-dependent manner."  There exists systems (Apollo's
systems begin among them, and I think there exist others) that treat
"//machine_name/dir/dir/.../file" as referring to a file in the
directory "/dir/dir/.../file" on machine "machine_name"s file systems.