cleanname is used mainly by user-space programs. the kernel only uses it to handle names of the form /clean/name/.. -- names ending in a single "/..". for the most part the kernel just keeps its names clean to begin with.
dot is a local fiction provided by the kernel. file servers never see dot, nor do they show it in listings. as for stat, i looked at the kernel code, and it looks like stat should be returning the mounted root info, not the mount points. and sure enough, it does! i'm not sure what i was seeing before that confused me. sorry for confusing all of you. even union mounts appear to stat the top guy in the union. russ
