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The "* <pgm>" convention
- To: (BUG ITS) at MIT-AI, (BUG DDT) at MIT-AI, (BUG EMACS) at MIT-AI
- To: (BUG LISP) at MIT-AI
- Subject: The "* <pgm>" convention
- From: GLS at MIT-AI (Guy L. Steele, Jr.)
- Date: Tue, 7 Nov 78 03:40:00 GMT
- Original-date: 6 NOV 1978 2240-EST
While it is intuitively appealing to use the name "* <pgm>"
to mean an init file that applies to all users (because of
the semantics of "*" meaning "all" when replacing a single
user name in "<user> <pgm>"), there is a highly unfortunate
interaction of this idea with the use of "*" in otherr contexts.
In particular, I have recently run into the problem that you
cannot use a translation either to or from such a name.
This bug arose in the context of trying to set
up a translation to circumvent a naming incompatibility during
the current transition period:
EMACS;.EMACS EMACS,* EMACS
does not work.