From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Harald Hanche-Olsen Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: paths are sensative to double separators Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 06:42:44 +0100 (CET) Message-ID: <20090319.064244.95961919.hanche@math.ntnu.no> References: <20090319015037.GC6695@reforged> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1237441751 24100 80.91.229.12 (19 Mar 2009 05:49:11 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 05:49:11 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Mar 19 06:50:25 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1LkB97-0001wb-CQ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 19 Mar 2009 06:50:25 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:54475 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1LkB7k-0000B3-J3 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 19 Mar 2009 01:49:00 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1LkB1r-0006Lh-Nj for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 19 Mar 2009 01:42:55 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1LkB1m-0006KO-98 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 19 Mar 2009 01:42:54 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=36383 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1LkB1m-0006KG-2Z for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 19 Mar 2009 01:42:50 -0400 Original-Received: from abel.math.ntnu.no ([129.241.15.50]:65176) by monty-python.gnu.org with smtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1LkB1l-0002uR-EE for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 19 Mar 2009 01:42:49 -0400 Original-Received: (qmail 28508 invoked from network); 19 Mar 2009 05:42:45 -0000 Original-Received: from gauss.math.ntnu.no (HELO localhost) (hanche@129.241.15.102) by abel.math.ntnu.no with ESMTPA; 19 Mar 2009 05:42:45 -0000 In-Reply-To: X-URL: http://www.math.ntnu.no/~hanche/ X-Mailer: Mew version 6.1.53 on Emacs 23.0.60 / Mule 6.0 (HANACHIRUSATO) X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: Solaris 8 (1) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:109685 Archived-At: + xah lee : > in unix-like OSes, double slash is effectively taken to mean root. > e.g. /foo/bar//baz.el would mean /baz.el > This convention is somewhat rooted in unixes. Actually, I believe posix says the exact opposite: Multiple slashes are equivalent to a single slash, except at the head of the path, where a double slash may have a different meaning. (On the Apollo machines of old, running domain/os, a leading double slash indicated the "network root", so you could specify //hostname/foo/bar to get /foo/bar on the host named hostname. It seems they took the Sun slogan "the network is the computer" to its logical conclusion.) Miles Bader gave a different explanation for emacs's behaviour. It seems odd to me that an interactive feature (a good one, too) should influence how path names are interpreted in code, however. - Harald PS. On those old Apollos, we changed root's home directory from / to /. in order to avoid being surprised by programs that constructed paths as $HOME/foo/bar.