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From: rjh@ihuxj.UUCP (Randolph J. Herber)
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng
Subject: Re: name=value or -n value
Message-ID: <451@ihuxj.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 30-Mar-84 17:16:51 EST
Article-I.D.: ihuxj.451
Posted: Fri Mar 30 17:16:51 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 31-Mar-84 08:22:50 EST
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 17

TSS(tm-IBM) is an old operating system. It has "default" variables
which are very similiar to Unix(tm-AT&T Bell Labs) environment variables.
The problem that same variable (by name) may have different meanings to
different programs is a significant (not necessarily major) problem.
When the problem was looked into for TSS, it was suggested (by whom I do
not know) to have qualified "default" variables with the understanding
that unqualified variables were intending to be global. The scan would
first look for a "default" variable qualified by the program name and
then if not found, look for a global version of the "default" variable.
Maybe a similiar solution would be useful for Unix.

	Randolph J. Herber, Amdahl Systems Engineer,
	..!ihnp4!ihuxj!rjh,
	c/o IH 1C220, AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL 60566,
	    (312) 979-6554 or AT&T Cornet 8-367-6554,
	 or Amdahl Corp., Suite 250, 6400 Shafer, Rosemont, IL 60018,
	    (312) 692-7520