>> Today I am wondering why we need to [...] canonicalise the block >> device name for mount. > Isn't it because in order to be able to compare strings, the path has > to have an uniq (canonical) form, independent from the way the user > enters it? For example, at the user level, how mount(8) could > compare, given only one argument, to what is in /etc/fstab without > trying first to give the pathname given some normal form?
That's a decent point; perhaps mount should do this when, but only when, it's given only one argument. But maybe not. Why would that be a good thing for it to do? Do you _want_ mount to turn "mount symlink-to-wd0e" into "mount /dev/wd0e"? I'm not convinced that is a good thing. (I'm also not convinced it's a bad thing, mind you.) /~\ The ASCII Mouse \ / Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML mo...@rodents-montreal.org / \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
