Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!beckman.com!dn71!a_rubin From: a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (Arthur Rubin) Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer Subject: Re: Thompson Toolkit (was Re: Where can I get MKS toolkit?) Message-ID: Date: 14 Jun 91 20:07:03 GMT References: <1991Jun14.031553.7236@midway.uchicago.edu> <1991Jun14.142925.20977@druid.uucp> Lines: 25 Nntp-Posting-Host: dn71.dse.beckman.com In <1991Jun14.142925.20977@druid.uucp> darcy@druid.uucp (D'Arcy J.M. Cain) writes: >In article <1991Jun14.031553.7236@midway.uchicago.edu> Doug Dougherty writes: >>Could someone explain to me why it is more "Unix-ish" to have C:foo mean >>C:\foo instead of C:.\foo? The later is obviously what the user >>intends; the former is just a bug. >It's only obvious to a DOS user. For those that don't know how the unix >file system works, there is no concept of drives. All physical drives >including hard disks, floppies etc. are simply mounted as a directory >on the primary file system. For example if I have a file system on a >floppy with the file "dir1/dir2/file" that I would like to access then >I mount the floppy somewhere on my system. Perhaps I mount it in my >home directory (which BTW is already on a mounted file system) on a >directory called mnt. Now the file name I want can be referred to as >/usr/darcy/mnt/dir1/dir2/file. As the concept of drives is DOS (TOPS-10, etc.), and has no meaning in Unix, it makes no sense NOT to use DOS conventions for C:foo. C:foo, C:/foo, and C:\foo have no meaning in Unix. -- 2165888@mcimail.com 70707.453@compuserve.com arthur@pnet01.cts.com (personal) a_rubin@dsg4.dse.beckman.com (work) My opinions are my own, and do not represent those of my employer.