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Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ll-xn!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!tektronix!orca!tekecs!frip!andrew
From: andrew@frip.gwd.tek.com (Andrew Klossner)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: Finding where an executable was run from -- a proposal.
Message-ID: <9987@tekecs.TEK.COM>
Date: 12 May 88 06:42:46 GMT
References: <67@uvaarpa.virginia.edu> <6800012@cpe> <4527@hoptoad.uucp>
Sender: andrew@tekecs.TEK.COM
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville, Oregon
Lines: 15

[]

	"This would make lots of application programs easier to
	install; you just copy it into somewhere on your PATH and it
	will run."

If an application uses this scheme to find its associated files, some
useful Unix idioms cease to work.  For example, say that "rn" lives in
/usr/news, but I don't want /usr/news in my PATH (too many nasty
commands are also there).  At present I can put a link to /usr/news/rn
in a directory that is in my path (e.g., my local bin).  With the
proposed scheme, that would cause rn to look in my_local_bin/lib/* for
its data files instead of in /usr/news/lib/*.

  -=- Andrew Klossner   (decvax!tektronix!tekecs!andrew)       [UUCP]
                        (andrew%tekecs.tek.com@relay.cs.net)   [ARPA]