dmr@research.UUCP (09/13/84)
"If the sequence [of file names] begins with a slash, the search begins in the root directory.... As a limiting case, the name `/' refers to the root itself.... A path name not starting with `/' causes the system to begin the search in the user's current directory.... As another limiting case, the null file name refers to the current directory." -- from the CACM Unix paper, 1974. Actually, I was considerably annoyed when USG illegalized "" because it is indeed the natural limiting case, and because (at the time) I could get no coherent explanation for the change except that some program had a bug and they preferred to change the semantics of file names instead of fixing the bug. The annoyance is lessened now, I suppose because no one actually uses the null file name (though it makes "." unnecessary). Also, it has inconvenient properties under concatenation (e.g. "" + "/file" = wrong). And, as I discover while investigating SysV, it sure makes for some peculiar diagnostics. Dennis Ritchie