From: sandmann AT clio DOT rice DOT edu (Charles Sandmann) Message-Id: <10206300719.AA14320@clio.rice.edu> Subject: Re: Using /dev/ as a real path To: eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il (Eli Zaretskii) Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2002 02:19:55 -0500 (CDT) Cc: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com In-Reply-To: from "Eli Zaretskii" at Jun 30, 2002 09:31:40 AM X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL2] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply-To: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com Errors-To: nobody AT delorie DOT com X-Mailing-List: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com X-Unsubscribes-To: listserv AT delorie DOT com Precedence: bulk > On Sat, 29 Jun 2002 sandmann AT clio DOT rice DOT edu wrote: > > > Is there a reason to strip /dev/ from the start of the string if we don't > > recognize the device type? > > The reason is that there are no limitations on the names of DOS devices. > Any device driver can install a device with up to 8 upper-case letters, > and plug it into the DOS device chain. We want to be able to support > /dev/foo if there's a device called FOO, and we don't want to limit that > to the names of standard devices like PRN and AUX. I understand why we would want to support this for unix type devices, but why would we want or need to support /dev/prn instead of just PRN? If a \dev directory really exists, how can we support it?