[PLUG] Found a strange file node on my Linux System

[Ali Corbin]

On 6/9/06, alan <alan at clueserver.org> wrote:
> On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, Robert Jeffrey Miesen wrote:
>
> > Hi.
> >
> >       I was navigating my system today and instead of typing in "cd /", I typed
> > in "cd //". Much to my suprise, I went to a directory called '//'. It's
> > contents seem to be the same as that of the root directory, but I find the
> > two backslashes to be quite weird. Can anybody replicate this behavior on
> > their system and/or tell me more about this "Double-root" directory?
>
> This appears to be a bug in bash.  I have reproduced it on AIX running
> bash, as well as Linux.  It does not occur in any other shell I have
> tried.
>

I've always assumed that this (collapsing multiple slashes together)
was a feature.  I certainly appreciate the fact that I can type
something like: "ls ./whatsit//whatever" and have it work.

Things like this happen when you use both tab completion and !'s, like this:

ls ./whatsit/       # (tab completion puts the final '/' on.)
ls !:1/whatever # (while I stick the '/' in, just to keep from
confusing myself.)

which resolves to:

ls ./whatsit//whatever

Ali