Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!think!ames!oliveb!sun!terra!brent
From: brent%terra@Sun.COM (Brent Callaghan)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Finding where an executable was run from -- a proposal.
Summary: another vnode in u-area ?
Message-ID: <53285@sun.uucp>
Date: 15 May 88 04:01:13 GMT
References: <67@uvaarpa.virginia.edu> <6800012@cpe> <4527@hoptoad.uucp> <4687@watdcsu.waterloo.edu>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
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I think the most useful and "right" way to do this would be to
add another inode/vnode to the process u-area.  At the moment
Unix requires two: one for the current root (changeable with
chroot()) and one for the current working directory (changeable
with chdir()).

The extra inode would represent the directory that the
process was exec-ed from.  The kernel namei() could do
lookups relative to this inode just like it can now for root
"/" and cwd "./".  The only sticky issue would be in deciding
what special filename character should be used for this.
Something like "@" used as a component on it's own at the
beginning of a path would be OK with me.

e.g.	open("@/default.rc", O_RDONLY)

Any takers ?

Made in New Zealand -->  Brent Callaghan  @ Sun Microsystems
			 uucp: sun!bcallaghan
			 phone: (415) 691 6188