Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!steinmetz!davidsen
From: davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: MKDIR bug in 2.11
Keywords: MKDIRSUB, mkdir oops
Message-ID: <12946@steinmetz.ge.com>
Date: 12 Jan 89 19:10:15 GMT
References: <5143@edm.UUCP>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 24

In article <5143@edm.UUCP> news@edm.UUCP (news software) writes:

| The other way to fix this (as many probably have) is to DEFINE MKDIRSUB
| for SYSV and other braindead systems. (just why IS mkdir an SU function???) 

  On SysV the mkdir system call makes a directory. On BSD systems it
makes a directory and creates the . and .. links. If you have a
directory with . and .. missing or malformed a lot of applications won't
work, particularly backups.

  SysV allows the superuser to create a directory and put in it what he
wishes. BSD decided that convenience wins over power and gave you fsdb
to handle the fancy cases.

  SysV added another mkdir call which also creates the files. This has
been out for some time, since V.2.x, and is in V.3. I don't think that
making another design decision is "braindead," and using phrases like
that brings on o/s wars. Now you know why SysV has mkdir an SU function,
because it makes a directory, with full user control, and the average
user is better off having it done for him.
-- 
	bill davidsen		(wedu@ge-crd.arpa)
  {uunet | philabs}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me