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Autzoo.1532 net.bugs utcsrgv!utzoo!henry Mon Apr 5 19:10:04 1982 nami misfeature, cont. We seem to have an inconsistency ahead of us. Like this:

The Unix Time-Sharing System: As another limiting case, the null file name refers to the current directory...

Unix 3.0 INTRO(2): Unless specifically stated otherwise, the null path name is treated as if it named a non-existent file...

I can't find any places in the 3.0 manual where anything is "specifically stated otherwise".

What to do? I am ambivalent about this one. There is something to be said for the V7 interpretation, although the do-something-reasonable-for- strange-input principle is weaker for system calls than for programs that users invoke directly. On the other hand, objecting to null filenames would have caught a number of bugs I've seen at one time or another. Note that the -1 pointer points to a null filename in V7. So does the NULL pointer if you are running split-space. On the whole, I think any use of a null filename is likely to be the result of a bug, so it should be trapped.

In practice, the 3.0 interpretation will probably triumph by sheer weight of numbers.

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