Re: LYNX-DEV /foo/.. ?

[Wayne Buttles]

On Mon, 4 Nov 1996, Klaus Weide wrote:

> On Mon, 4 Nov 1996, Wayne Buttles wrote:
> 
> > Klaus Weide (address@hidden) wrote:
> > 
> > > I don't know what happens with such paths on DOS, I think multiple
> > > backslashes in arbitrary places are illegal there.
> > 
> > Is there a rule here?  I couldn't find rules for file:// from a quick
> > search.  
> 
> What kind of rule do you mean?   RFC 1738 talks about file: URLs, and
> RFC 1808 talks about resolution of relative URLs (in general).
> 
> >    My current DOS URL bastardization accepts the following (and a
> > bunch more variations):
> 
> Let me try to apply the RFCs to your examples:
> 
> > file:////lynx/bookmark.htm
> 
> Now here we have one slash too many, illegal according to the syntax
> of RFC 1808 (but not RFC 1738).  That extra slash doesn't seem to
> fulfil any useful purpose.  (file:///lynx/bookmark.htm should always
> refer to the same file IMHO, i.e. the path in a fully specified URL
> should always be taken as an absolute path.)
> 

It actually does fulfill a purpose, if you squint your eyes real tight and
look at it sideways...  ;-)  It replaced `c:/' i.e.: 

file:////lynx/bookmark.htm
       ^^
       ^^\null dos drive
       ^
        \ null localhost


My first attempt ended up in a direct 1 to 1 translation of the slashes
until the path portion is hit.  I don't know yet what would happen if I
take it out.  It might break access of temp files, options, key map,
info page, history...  all which are working now. 

> 
> > file:///./\/\/\////\\\bookmark.htm
> 
> I am not even sure what that monstrosity is supposed to mean.
> I just note that an absolute path starting with "." is somewhat, hmm,
> ill-defined.  Is that relative to the root directory?  

. means this directory just like it does directly on a unix filesystem:

./lynx http://lynx.browser.org (run my own darn copy)

The rest was just crap.  It just boils down to ./bookmark.htm

How do you access a file on the current volume in VMS with lynx without
putting the volume in the path?

file://localhost//lynx/bookmark.htm 

or

file://localhost/lynx/bookmark.htm 

?

Wayne

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