Message-Id: <9309131807.AA27446@rs042.scic.intel.com>
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1993 11:04:20 -0800
To: dcmartin@library.ucsf.edu (David C. Martin)
From: kevin@scic.intel.com (Kevin Altis)
Subject: Re: URN/URL file links
At 8:54 AM 9/13/93 -0700, David C. Martin wrote:
>I have already made a similar modification to Mosaic; the basic premise
>is similar, but I encode the URL in a symbolic link. The idea you
>propose would be acceptable for machines that don't have symbolic links
>(e.g. Windows -- aliases could be used on a Macintosh).
The main reason I wanted to have the URL or URN stored as a single line
text file is that the file could then be copied across systems, changing
the actual filename used by the local OS when necessary. The modification
you used, which may be appropriate for some versions of Unix won't work
across other systems, including some versions of Unix. You can still make
references to the file that are OS specific such as aliases on the Mac,
symbolic links under Unix, or some program specific link under Windows, but
that wouldn't change the actual file. The actual file containing the URL or
URN could be distributed across all systems without needing any internal
changes! Even the various carriage return linefeed combinations, won't
cause a problem.
Kevin Altis
Intel Corporation
Supercomputer Systems Division
Internet: kevin@scic.intel.com