Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!husc6!encore!xylogics!loverso
From: loverso@Xylogics.COM (John Robert LoVerso)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: /../... (Re: What kinds of things would you want in the GNU OS?)
Message-ID: <2824@xenna.Xylogics.COM>
Date: 10 Jun 89 17:39:02 GMT
References: <106326@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <4315@ficc.uu.net> <338@arc.UUCP> <3028@rti.UUCP> <4486@ficc.uu.net>
Reply-To: loverso@Xylogics.COM (John Robert LoVerso)
Organization: Xylogics, Inc., Burlington MA
Lines: 12

In article <3028@rti.UUCP>, mcm@rti.UUCP (Mike Mitchell) writes:
> What happens if you unlink the '..' entry in the '/' directory
> and mkdir a directory called '..'?  I'll tell you what happens.  You get a
> directory called '..' accessible from '/'.  You can now chdir to '/..' and
> get to a new directory.

This is exactly the scheme used by CMU's RFS (as included with MACH).
`/' is the root, but `/..' is the the sticky concept of `super-root'.
As I understand it, the actual `root' used for booting (at least for
MACH on the Multimax) is in `/../.LOCALROOT'.

John