It breaks POSIX, and a helluva lot of tools. Unix has the "multiple
slash rule", which says that multiple slashes are treated as one (in
fact, traditional Unices treat // as /./) and a final slash like a
final slash-dot.
POSIX does allow for one exception to the multiple slash rule: exactly
two slashes at the beginning may be used to escape to a higher
namespace. Also /.. is allowed to escape to a higher namespace.
Both, however, are bad ideas, as a lot of traditional Unix tools
assume that /.. == / and // == /.
An undelete utility also needs to take into account multiple
generations of a file, which may all have the same name. The only
commonly used syntax for that is <filename>;version -- presumably if
there is no version you are talking the "current" (i.e. not deleted)
version. This would not be a part of the standard Linux filename
resolution, but could be used by a special set of system calls related
to undeletion of files. They would have to provide for some mechanism
to escape the semicolon (maybe ; -> ;;) if a filename does actually
contain one.
-hpa
--
PGP: 2047/2A960705 BA 03 D3 2C 14 A8 A8 BD 1E DF FE 69 EE 35 BD 74
See http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/ for web page and full PGP public key
Always looking for a few good BOsFH. ** Linux - the OS of global cooperation
I am Baha'i -- ask me about it or see http://www.bahai.org/