Re: path canonicalization problem (issue #559)

On Mon, Jan 21, 2002 at 05:39:43PM -0500, Max.Hyre@cardiopulmonarycorp.com wrote:
> Another one with Truly Ugly semantics is VMS. It was a long
> time ago, and all the detail I sort of remember is that you
> got to specify disk?/partition?/logical volume?/something
> inside of ``[]'', and the rest of the path was quite different.
> What I *do* remember is how painful it was.

If memory serves (I may have a couple of things wrong here, it's been
almost 9 years since I've had access to any flavor of VMS):

        LABEL:[PATH.TO.RESOURCE]FILENAME.EXT;VERSION

Where LABEL is the VMS volume label, FILENAME.EXT is the name of the file
with an extension (ala DOS filenames), and VERSION is an integer revision
number for the file. '.' is used as a directory separator. Shortcut
conventions include '[]' for the current directory, '[.subdir]' for
referring to a subdirectory of the current working directory, and using
the version number was optional (it will default to the most recent
revision). "-", "_", and "$" are the only non-alphanumeric characters
permitted in the filenames. Filenames are case-insensitive and may only
be up to 39 characters long (before directory, extension, and version).

You have to watch it with filenames, too; "aliasing" through logical
names are pervasive in the environment, hiding more complicated underlying
directory structures, meaning you can often have a dozen or more ways to
access a particular set of directories (ie. SYS$USER refers to home
directories, which could actually refer to another logical name, which
in turn could refer to a real disk and path...or yet another logical name).

The ACL system is very much akin to the NT/2000/XP scheme (since that's
where they borrowed it from ;-). I won't bother with the details.

Ahhh, the good 'ol days. I still remember writing "cd" and "ls" DCL
scripts to make the environment a little less clunky. Beat the hell out
of how DOS handled volume naming and disk management, but that wasn't
saying much. ;-)

-- 
Edward S. Marshall <esm_at_logic.net>                        http://esm.logic.net/
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