access()

[Guy Harris]

 >So someone should tell the people doing HDB uucp to stop converting:
 >	//node/path/file
 >into:
 >	/node/path/file
 >so we could access remote nodes on our net from our new System V box.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, but I'm sure you realize
that, unless you're running Domain/OS or something like it on "your new
System V box", merely changing HDB not to do that won't have that
effect.  I shall therefore assume that you're trying to make some sort
of point here.

If you're trying to say "interpreting '//' specially is a stupid idea",
I'll let the Apollo people respond to that one.

If you're trying to say "programs shouldn't have to worry about whether
'//' means something special or not", sorry, but POSIX seems to indicate
that perhaps programs *should* worry about it.  POSIX-conformant
programs can't *depend* on '//' meaning something special, but they must
be prepared for it to mean something special. 

The fact that HDB performs that transformation really says nothing other
than that the people who wrote the code to do that thought it was OK to
do so; since they were, I think, all running on systems with
more-or-less AT&T-derived file system handling code (or code written to
behave pretty much like said code), they probably either didn't think
about systems where '//' means something special or didn't care about
them.