OT: DOS/Windows and slashes (was Re: Windows XP Pro and PossiblefilePro Bug)

[Bill Vermillion]

As Brian K. White was scratching "For a good prime call 
391581 * 2^216193 -1" on the wall, he suddenly said:

> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Kenneth Brody" <kenbrody at bestweb.net>
> To: "Fairlight" <fairlite at fairlite.com>
> Cc: "filePro List" <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
> Sent: Sunday, December 05, 2004 10:37 AM
> Subject: Re: OT: DOS/Windows and slashes (was Re: Windows XP Pro and 
> PossiblefilePro Bug)
> 

> >Fairlight wrote:
> >[...]
> >>> My finger slipped off the 'v' key onto the adjacent 'c' key and
> >>> I type   ci <filename> when I wanted to type  vi <filename>.
> >>> But that's how we learn isn't it?  Have you ever done that one?

> >>Yeah, I've buggered something into CVS that way. Funnily, I
> >>was trying to type CVS just now and -three- times in a row
> >>typed VCS instead before I could force it to go right. :)

> >What about typing "print" and having an "f" magically appear after it?

> >[...]

> >>> Or things which come in from a Mac world where a / is
> >>> permitted in a file name. I have enough problems with
> >>> <spaces> when things get moved cross-platform.
> >>
> >>I just tried escaping one in *nix and no joy. (touch bli\/p)
> >>You can escape damned near everything else, including control
> >>characters. Not slashes.

> >You can escape the slash all you want. All that happens is
> >that you end up with a slash, which is built into the kernel
> >as the path separator. It's not possible to get a filename
> >with a '/' or '\0' in it. (Well, you could theoretically place
> >a '/' in a filename with a raw disk editor, but I have no idea
> >if you could ever access it.)

> Strange. I was certain I remembered seeing a file with slashes
> in sco or freebsd as part of something to do with booting. like
> a file named "/etc/default/boot" on a boot floppy, or something
> in a /stand or /boot filesystem.

I think you are mixing your OSes here.

In FreebSD /stand is a directory under /.   It causes a few questions
from new users when they see 32 files - all 2181808 long [in the 
4.10 version].

It's a single file with 32 links - all names being the programs
you need to boot a raw system.   The name comes from the
standalone environment in which it operates.  There is an
etc directory under /stand which contains another directory
called defaults which contains the default rc.conf.

This means it will all fit on a 2.88MB floppy or in the 
boot area of a CD-ROM, which acts just like a 2.88MB floppy.

In SCO there is /etc/default/boot in OSR5 which is a symlink to 
/var/opt/K/SCO/Unix/505eb/etc/default/boot.
                    ^^^^^<<--varies with the version.

And all that file is the bootstring and other parameters passed
at boot time.   

> I just tried a few obvious things at the regular shell and
> couldn't create a file either.

Just think a second about how you would access a file with slashes
in it.  All programs will think an embedded slash is another
subdirectory, and will return something like "xxxxx: file not found"

Bill
-- 
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com