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From: gwyn@brl-smoke.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: /bin/test and stat(2)
Message-ID: <6512@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 3-Oct-87 21:17:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.6512
Posted: Sat Oct  3 21:17:32 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 4-Oct-87 07:01:49 EDT
References: <9479@brl-adm.ARPA> <4779@ncoast.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 10

In article <4779@ncoast.UUCP> allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) writes:
>Both "stat" and this sample demonstrate what is basically a bug in the
>kernel routine namei(), which maps a filename to a <device, inode> pair.

"" was not considered a "bug" originally, but a nice feature -- it was
specifically mentioned in one of the original UNIX papers.

It does have the drawback that it doesn't behave right under string
concatenation etc., and it was eventually outlawed (probably in response
to naive-user complaints) in the official AT&T releases of UNIX.