Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!CORWIN.CCS.NORTHEASTERN.EDU!mckee
From: mckee@CORWIN.CCS.NORTHEASTERN.EDU (George McKee)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: syntax of remote pathnames?
Message-ID: <8903161632.AA16971@corwin.CCS.Northeastern.EDU>
Date: 16 Mar 89 16:32:02 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 20

Is there any standard notation for file on some remote host where
the filename includes the host's domain name?  People seem to
talk around the issue when the problem comes up in writing 
and use expressions like:
	ftp somehost.someUniv.EDU
	get pub/goodstuff/goodthing
when it would make the writing flow much more smoothly if you
could say things like "you can find a program that might do what
you want in @SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU:info-mac/app/contour81.hqx".
	If there's no standard for this, I'll propose that a
pathname beginning with @ be interpreted as an Internet File Path
and that the string between the @ and the following : conform to
the normal domain syntax and denote the host filesystem that the
IFP refers to.  Anything following the : will use whatever syntax
is native to the host filesystem.
	An obvious alternative is pathname@domain.name like in
mailboxes, but people don't use this either.  I don't know why.

	- George McKee
	  NU Computer Science