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From: Margulies@SAPSUCKER.SCRC.SYMBOLICS.COM.UUCP
Newsgroups: mod.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Submission for mod-protocols-tcp-ip
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Date: Mon, 29-Dec-86 08:44:00 EST
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Posted: Mon Dec 29 08:44:00 1986
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    Date: 29 Dec 86 08:32:06 GMT
    From: sun!news@seismo.CSS.GOV

    Path: sun!gorodish!guy
    From: guy%gorodish@Sun.COM (Guy Harris)
    Newsgroups: mod.protocols.tcp-ip
    Subject: Re: Need information on NFS
    Summary: Pathname syntax/semantics and file formats are two separate issues.
    Message-ID: <10851@sun.uucp>
    Date: 29 Dec 86 08:32:06 GMT
    References: <8612250637.AA05517@seismo.CSS.GOV> <861225195214.5.MARGULIES@REDWING.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
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    > Consider TOPS-20 directory structure, VM/CMS mini-disks, file system
    > that permit "/" characters in their filenames, or especially file
    > systems (like VMS and VM/CMS) that have structured (non-byte stream)
    > files.  None of them map very quietly into a hierarchical set of
    > directories separated by "/" characters, and there are more and harder
    > where they came from.

    The problem with VMS pathnames has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact
    that some operating systems keep file attributes like file format around and
    that a certain level of those OSes (not the kernel, in the case of VMS, but
    RMS) imposes a certain interpretation of the bytes in the file, based on
    these file attributes, on its clients.  Those are separate issues; you can
    build a system with a VMS-style pathname syntax but with no interpretation
    of the file's contents below user-mode code, or a system with UNIX-style
    pathnames but with VMS-style file attributes handled by something like RMS.

Indeed. Perhaps if I changed the last sentence to:

  "None of them map very quietly into a hierarchical set of directories
separated by "/" characters where all of the files are expected to be
simple vectors of 8bit bytes"

you would like it better.  They are separate problems.  They are both
hard.