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From: mishkin@apollo.UUCP.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.computers.apollo
Subject: "Search lists", links and environment variables
Message-ID: <8607110646.AA14594@uw-beaver.arpa>
Date: Thu, 10-Jul-86 14:06:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: uw-beave.8607110646.AA14594
Posted: Thu Jul 10 14:06:27 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 11-Jul-86 23:05:28 EDT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 25
Approved: apollo@yale-comix.arpa

To follow up on my previous message about multi-valued links, it has been
pointed out to me by several people that I didn't have my head screwed on
quite right:  The right way to look at the problem is in terms of added
pathname syntax, not links and environment variable.  E.g. the syntax
"/a/{x,y,z}/b" might be chosen to mean "/a/x/b", "/a/y/b", and "/a/z/b".
This syntax could be "hidden" inside either environment variables OR
links, as one likes:

    $ v := "{x,y,z}"
    $ catf "/a/$(v)/b"

    $ crl l "{x,y,z}"
    $ catf "/a/l/b"

One interesting note: given that under Unix, all characters (other than
"/") are valid in pathname components, how upset are people likely to
be at me taking even more reserved characters (i.e. the "{" "}", or
whatever)?  If I used a syntax like "/a/$((x,y,z))/b", I wouldn't be
making matters much worse since we already reserved "$(...)" for
environment variables.  Of course, this looks horrible.

                    -- Nat Mishkin
                       Apollo Computer Inc.
                       apollo!mishkin
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