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From: johng@ecrcvax.UUCP (John Gregor)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Symbolic Links
Message-ID: <428@ecrcvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 31-Dec-69 18:59:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: ecrcvax.428
Posted: Wed Dec 31 18:59:59 1969
Date-Received: Sat, 29-Aug-87 09:53:08 EDT
References: <8731@brl-adm.ARPA> <2789@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com> <1781@munnari.oz> <2854@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com> <8137@mimsy.UUCP> <6342@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Reply-To: johng@ecrcvax.UUCP (John Gregor)
Organization: ECRC, Munich 81, West Germany
Lines: 18

Another problem I forsee in changing the semantics of .. is that symbolic links
can be cyclic.  So, a few hundred trips around the cycle and the kernal would
have to keep that much state information around.  The question is, how much?
A fixed table probably won't make it (unless obscenely large), and from what
I know, use of dynamic structures for kernal data structures is frowned upon.
Keep 'em the same, and put the smarts in your shell (that's where stacks should
be).  Whats keeping you from changing the code in your favourite shell to remap
'..' along with the code that handles '?', '*', and all the rest?  (Binary
sites please don't flame me)

				Later
				  johng

John Gregor			        	johng%ecrcvax.UUCP@germany.CSNET
ECRC
Arabellastr. 17
D-8000 Munich 81
West Germany