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From: ron@topaz.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: /bin/test and stat(2)
Message-ID: <15779@topaz.rutgers.edu>
Date: Wed, 21-Oct-87 08:40:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.15779
Posted: Wed Oct 21 08:40:17 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 23-Oct-87 06:21:22 EDT
References: <9479@brl-adm.ARPA> <4779@ncoast.UUCP> <8898@mimsy.UUCP> <653@murphy.UUCP>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 19

There is no context in which "" is the ROOT unless your current directory
is the root.  If the name starts with slash, use top of tree otherwise
use the current directory.  I have a hard time figuring out why

    "/" means root
    ".bin/" means the .bin directory in the current directory
    "/tmp/" means the /tmp directory
    but
    I've explicitly got to say "." rather than "".
If it were the case that null names are undefined, then "/" ought
to be illegal, it would need to be "/." to actually refer to the
directory.

On NON-UNIX machines, both "." and "" and directory delims "/" in
general ought to work funny, if at all.  Just look at the headstanding
that has to be done to support UNIX-like directory heirarchy under
VMS.

-Ron