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From:	"Jeremy Fitzhardinge" <jeremy@softway.com.au>
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Date:	Fri, 19 Sep 1997 13:21:13 -0400
In-Reply-To: Chris Siebenmann <cks@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu>
        "Re: are there any patches which add ~ expansion to rc" (Sep 18,  7:26pm)
References: <97Sep18.202144edt.24666@hawkwind.utcs.utoronto.ca>
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To:	Chris Siebenmann <cks@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu>
Subject: Re: are there any patches which add ~ expansion to rc
Cc:	rc@hawkwind.utcs.toronto.edu
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On Sep 18,  7:26pm, Chris Siebenmann wrote:
>  Our local solution is a /u directory (automatically) populated with
> symlinks that point to the appropriate places. We've been running it
> for years without problems; I can mail people copies of either a sh
> or a perl version[*] of the script that maintains /u if desired.

While I agree that /u is an elegant approach to dealing with the ~user
problem, the most common use of ~ is when referring to one's own
home directory, which /u doesn't help with.  I once implemented /u
as a user-space filesystem under Linux which generated its contents
on demand from /etc/passwd. It also had a /u/me which always referred
to the caller's home direcory, which is hard to do with a conventional
symlink /u.

The $H solution is OK for rc, but it has the same problems as ~, in that
not everything will understand it.

	J