> how do you distinguish /u/myid/somefile.txt from /u/yourid/somefile.txt? Would the catalog have both entries? If so, then if you reference "the file" via this catalog, which file do you actually access?
I did give some preliminary thought to this. To accommodate the current concepts of Unix (and Windows) hierarchical file system, such a catalog would, for sure, need to have entries for all files, distinguished by, not only file name, but also the absolute path, so the user could give partial path and find the file. Let's say (and this is common) you have a development and prod environments, which are different only by some branch: /aaa/bbb/dev/ccc/ddd/eee/fff/myfile vs. /aaa/bbb/prod/ggg/ddd/eee/fff/myfile a possible way to find that would be something like (I use backslash as the escape, in Windows we'll need to use slash :): \dev\myfile vs. \prod\myfile ore perhaps, in more complicated environments: \dev\ccc\myfile vs. \prod\ggg\myfile if the same file also exists in /aaa/bbb/dev/ppp/ddd/eee/fff/myfile and /aaa/bbb/prod/rrr/ddd/eee/fff/myfile this is only a concept and it comes to accommodate the peculiarities of the Unix file system. I may think of better ways to design the file systems of both OSes to begin with, but we all know about the hindsight vision. I did not give too much thought for the z/OS file naming because I know the situation there is much more hopeless. I am well aware about how the file naming scheme is entrenched in the rest of the OS. In that case Unix is much more flexible and could be adapted to some standard catalog use is such catalog would be developed and used. I actually gave a thought for the possibility of developing such a product, but I do not have the time and resources. I would be willing to advise and support anybody who may undertake such a project. ZA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
