From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG  Sun Feb 23 15:32:18 2014
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Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2014 10:18:31 -0500 (EST)
From: Daniel Eischen <deischen@freebsd.org>
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To: Willem Jan Withagen <wjw@digiware.nl>
Subject: Re: Thoughts on Multi-Symlink Concept
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Cc: freebsd-filesystems@freebsd.org, freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org,
 jordan.hubbard@gmail.com, Perry Hutchison <perryh@pluto.rain.com>
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On Sun, 23 Feb 2014, Willem Jan Withagen wrote:

> On 16-2-2014 6:16, Perry Hutchison wrote:
>> Jordan Hubbard <jordan.hubbard@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Even variant symlinks (/bin -> /${ARCH}/bin), which can expand
>>> differently depending on the user context, have clearly
>>> understandable semantics - you know that the symlink is going
>>> to expand to exactly one file no matter what ARCH is set to.
>>
>> s/file/pathname/
>>
>> Depending on what ARCH is set to, the expanision may or may not
>> point to any actual file (or directory, or ...)
>
> Yes, please can we get these ....
>
> Apollo Domain systems had those, and they were great.
> Set SYSTYPE to BSD4 and get the BSD tree and all that came with it, or
> SYSV to get the other stuff.
>
> Would indeed work great for things like /bin or even
> /usr/local/etc -> /${HOST}/usr/local/etc

This topic comes up every couple of years.  I recall
Domain OS fondly - it was my first UNIX-like OS.  I would
really like variant symlinks, but I predict in another
couple of years we'll be having the same conversation :-)

-- 
DE