Subject: Re: kern/1781: 'magic' symbolic link expansion
To: Greg Hudson <ghudson@mit.edu>
From: Chris G Demetriou <Chris_G_Demetriou@BALVENIE.PDL.CS.CMU.EDU>
List: netbsd-bugs
Date: 11/24/1995 19:09:17
> Because you chose to implement your magic expansions at symlink
> resolution time, this code won't work any more.

true.  I can think of other things that might break it, but can
provide no concrete examples.


> Why was it cleaner to
> specify the meaning of these magic expansions at symlink resolution
> time rather than at the namei level, as AFS did?

look at the relevant code, then implement the necessary changes to do
it, in general, for all name resolution rather than just when
expanding symlinks.


I provided the code and implementation that i did because (1) i felt
like doing it, and (2) i thought people might find it useful. I didn't
intend for it to be perfect, nor did i intend for it to be integrated
into the source tree (if at all) without any changes.  I sent it as a
PR so that at least people who wanted to code could have it.

If you think an implementation of 'magic' pathnames should be done,
and you think that the sample implementation that i provided which
only works for symlinks is inadequate, by all means provide one.
However, don't expect me to; I'm done hacking on that code.


chris