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

[Brian K. White]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bill Vermillion" <fp at wjv.com>
To: "filePro List" <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Monday, December 06, 2004 9:30 AM
Subject: Re: OT: DOS/Windows and slashes (was Re: Windows XP Pro 
andPossiblefilePro Bug)


> 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"

um, heh, I know all that.

I'm saying I thought I once saw a file in a special environment like a boot 
floppy or boot fs, with a name constructed to look like the directory 
structure that file is usually found in. IE: there was (for example) an 
/etc/default/boot which satisfied the boot loader, and yet there was no /etc 
directory.

I can't imagine why anyone would need to create such an object. It can't 
save enough space or inodes to matter even on a floppy and so feel free to 
assume such an object never existed and I was just in too much of a hurry 
that day to look properly at what I was looking at, but I do know all about 
sco's symlinks and at least the basics of freebsd's /stand fs.

Brian K. White  --  brian at aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
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