Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!sdcsvax!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!hpda!hpisod1!hpcllla!hpclisp!hpclscu!shankar
From: shankar@hpclscu.HP.COM (Shankar Unni)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: nonstandard '..' and '.' entries - (nf)
Message-ID: <670004@hpclscu.HP.COM>
Date: 29 Jan 88 00:24:23 GMT
References: <4300010@pcsbst.UUCP>
Organization: HP ITG/ISO Computer Language Lab
Lines: 18

/ hpclscu:comp.unix.wizards / jh@pcsbst /  2:29 am  Jan 26, 1988 /
> 2)      If the operating system silently implies these standard
> 	relations, why not drop the explicit '..' and '.' entries
> 	altogether and consequently forbid (ignore for the sake of
> 	compability) linking and unlinking of such entries?
> 

I know of at least one implementation of Unix (a version that ran on HP9000
series 500 workstations at HP) that had directories structured like LIF 
directories, and that did not have entries for "." and "..". Since there are
enough programs there that automagically assume that the first two entries
of a directory are "." and "..", the DIR routines (opendir, readdir, etc) had
to be kludged up, for instance, to return "." and ".." the first two times you
called readdir.  Naturally, seekdir() had to be "fixed" up, as well...

A classic example of a beautiful idea strangled by ugly reality (to paraphrase
someone else...)

Shankar Unni.