Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!uwvax!dogie!uwmcsd1!marque!introl!tim
From: tim@introl.uucp (Tim Chase)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: A suggestion: .... == ../../..
Message-ID: <368@inta1.UUCP>
Date: 19 Apr 88 23:33:03 GMT
References: <75@vertical.oz> <4221@vdsvax.steinmetz.ge.com>
Reply-To: tim@inta1.UUCP (Tim Chase)
Organization: none
Lines: 20

In article <4221@vdsvax.steinmetz.ge.com> barnett@steinmetz.ge.com (Bruce G. Barnett) writes:
>The beauty of the current implemenetation is that the file system
>does most of the work. That is, the files '.' and '..' are really
>there.

Unfortunately, the non-beauty of many current implementations is that the "."
and ".." are finding their way into kernel now that we have things like
rename(2) and chroot(2).  I think the functionality of these, and other,
new functions is worth it and may provide some precedent for things like
the "..." suggestion.

Maybe now that knowledge of "." and ".." is both in the file system and
the kernel, they ought to be removed from the file system.  That would
at least save some disk space, but would probably break programs that
read directories.


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