Date: Fri, 03 Jul 1998 21:07:20 -0700 From: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au> To: Richard Wackerbarth <rkw@Dataplex.Net> Cc: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>, Thomas David Rivers <rivers@dignus.com>, drosih@rpi.edu, wjw@surf.IAE.nl, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Variant Link implementation, continued Message-ID: <199807040407.VAA07881@antipodes.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 03 Jul 1998 22:38:49 CDT." <l03130302b1c3531465fe@[208.2.87.10]>
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> At 9:26 PM -0500 7/3/98, Mike Smith wrote:
> >> >
> >> > Then I'll be thinking about haveing 2 rules of resolution:
> >> > @{....}
> >> > and ${....}
> >> >
> >>
> >> I don't mean to badger... but what if you, in an existing installation,
> >> already have symlinks that contain that text? Won't adding this
> >> facility break those existing links?
> >>
> >> [And, don't laugh, but I do have links and files that begin with '$',
> >> and, even worse, have '$' embedded in the middle of them...]
> >
> >In the existing sample implementation, you would have to have links
> >whose names comply explicitly with the syntax ...${<tag>}... where <tag>
> >is a valid tag in the variant link namespace.
> >
> >I think that this is sufficiently unlikely given that there have been
> >only two respondents that actually use '$' in names at all...
>
> How much trouble is this syntax going to cause since it looks just
> like shell parameters and will have to be escaped just the right number
> of times to get it passed through the shells? Wouldn't it be easier if
> we avoid a syntax that the shell will alter?
The point was to look _just_like_ the shell syntax, to avoid inventing
Yet Another Syntax. Given that you already have to do all that magic
for passing such text to other shells, this is an something that people
already know and understand.
We already have lots of diversity; no need to invent more complexity.
--
\\ Sometimes you're ahead, \\ Mike Smith
\\ sometimes you're behind. \\ mike@smith.net.au
\\ The race is long, and in the \\ msmith@freebsd.org
\\ end it's only with yourself. \\ msmith@cdrom.com
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