From owner-freebsd-hackers Thu Jul 2 21:17:32 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id VAA08072 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Thu, 2 Jul 1998 21:17:32 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from antipodes.cdrom.com (castles185.castles.com [208.214.165.185]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id VAA08050 for ; Thu, 2 Jul 1998 21:17:23 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mike@antipodes.cdrom.com) Received: from antipodes.cdrom.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by antipodes.cdrom.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id VAA03798; Thu, 2 Jul 1998 21:16:23 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199807030416.VAA03798@antipodes.cdrom.com> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0zeta 7/24/97 To: Garance A Drosihn cc: Mike Smith , Thomas David Rivers , jkh@time.cdrom.com, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Variant Link implementation, continued In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 02 Jul 1998 18:10:44 EDT." Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Thu, 02 Jul 1998 21:16:22 -0700 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > I think there would be less headaches all-around if symlinks did not > key off environment variables, although I do think we'd want them to > key off of something as simple to adjust as environment variables are. This expresses my opinion quite succinctly. Overloading the environment space to also control variant links would be a Very Bad Idea, simply because the risk of name collision is too high. Allowing links to indicate that they *should* be keyed off the environment space, OTOH, isn't such a sin. eg: ${sysctl:hw.arch} and ${env:USER} but this creates a new union space with yet another different syntax. ${space=sysctl, mib=hw.arch} and ${space=env, var=USER} perhaps? -- \\ 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 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message