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From: del@thrush.mlb.semi.harris.com (Don Lewis)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: /bin/pwd
Message-ID: <1990Sep14.225242.10924@mlb.semi.harris.com>
Date: 14 Sep 90 22:52:42 GMT
References: <13851@smoke.BRL.MIL> <2497@idunno.Princeton.EDU> <13858@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Sender: news@mlb.semi.harris.com
Organization: Harris Semiconductor, Melbourne FL
Lines: 20

In article <13858@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) writes:
>In article <2497@idunno.Princeton.EDU> pfalstad@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Paul John Falstad) writes:
>-In article <13851@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) writes:
>->No, on most systems there is no easier way than the obvious one of
>->seeing where a succession of ".."s gets you.
>-That was what I considered "the easy way."  But how do you do that?
>-For example, how do you find out the name of "."?  You could find out
>-its inode, and then check the previous directory to see which name
>-matches its inode; but that only works until you get to the root of the
>-filesystem your directory is mounted in (I don't mean "/").  What then?  Do
>-you have to check /etc/mtab?
>
>Yes, you got it, exactly.

This scheme fails badly in the presence if Sun's loopback mounts because
the filesystem can be mounted in multiple places.
--
Don "Truck" Lewis                      Harris Semiconductor
Internet:  del@mlb.semi.harris.com     PO Box 883   MS 62A-028
Phone:     (407) 729-5205              Melbourne, FL  32901