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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!news.wildstar.net!news.sdsmt.edu!news.mid.net!newsfeeder.gi.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!swrinde!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!news.ucdavis.edu!chip.ucdavis.edu!not-for-mail From: fzshenau@chip.ucdavis.edu (Gregory Shenaut) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.misc Subject: Nested Directories in PATH Date: 6 Aug 1996 03:34:59 GMT Organization: University of California, Davis Lines: 18 Message-ID: <4u6eh3$92r@mark.ucdavis.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: chip.ucdavis.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 950824BETA PL0] It occurs to me that it might be quite useful to allow nesting in the directories on the user's PATH. This would allow the binaries associated with particular packages and versions of packages to be kept together, possibly even in source trees pointed to via symbolic links. It would simplify upgrades and installations, shorten PATH lists, and create a logical structure out of chaos in such places as /bin and /usr/contrib/bin. In other words, the structure of /usr/bin would mirror that of /usr/src/usr.bin. Would this be worth doing? (It could be implemented by having the directories which appear on the user's PATH contain links pointing into a hierarchical command tree; this would require no changes to shells, etc; these shadow bin directories would need to be kept up to date somehow, though.) -- Greg Shenaut -- gkshenaut@ucdavis.edu