Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!bsu-cs!dhesi
From: dhesi@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Rahul Dhesi)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: What kinds of things would you want in the GNU OS?
Keywords: GNU OS features kernel fun!
Message-ID: <7439@bsu-cs.bsu.edu>
Date: 26 May 89 00:05:34 GMT
References: <106326@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <4315@ficc.uu.net> <338@arc.UUCP>
Reply-To: dhesi@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Rahul Dhesi)
Organization: CS Dept, Ball St U, Muncie, Indiana
Lines: 25

I suggest finding a better syntax for root than "/".  It can lead to
filenames containing // and it takes special case code [note 1] to
handle such filenames.  And some systems want // to mean something
special.

On the other hand, if you call root "root", then "cd root" can be
ambiguous (as was pointed out to me today).

How about reserving a leading ^ to mean root and temporarily accepting
a leading / as a synonym for compatibility?

     ^/usr/bin == /usr/bin
     cd ^      == cd /

For networking, ^^ could be special, sort of like // but without the
overloading of //.

Note 1.  UNIX handles // by assuming that there is a null filename
component between the two slashes.  Unfortunately this allows legal
filenames like /bin//cat and even /bin//////cat which, if a program is
trying to parse pathanmes, is painful.
-- 
Rahul Dhesi <dhesi@bsu-cs.bsu.edu>
UUCP:    ...!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!dhesi
Career change search is on -- ask me for my resume