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Date: Fri, 3 Jul 1998 12:29:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: Thomas David Rivers <rivers@dignus.com>
Message-Id: <199807031629.MAA18898@lakes.dignus.com>
To: drosih@rpi.edu, mike@smith.net.au
Subject: Re: Variant Link implementation, continued
Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, jkh@time.cdrom.com, rivers@dignus.com
In-Reply-To: <199807030416.VAA03798@antipodes.cdrom.com>
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> 
> > 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?
> 

 I like this idea (with perhaps a sysctl variable to name the
default space if none is provided...)

 However, I'd like to ask the general syntax question... is there
a set of letters from which to choose which will not violate POSIX
semantics...  
  
 That is, can't I, right now, create a file named "${FOO}", or just
about anything?

 So, how do we choose this symlink syntax without potentially breaking
something else?

   - Just curious -
	- Dave Rivers -

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