[no subject]

[Philip E. Agre <AGRE at MIT-AI>]

Perhaps the idea you want to decide when to warn somebody about creating multiple
editor buffers for the same file is the idea of the "root" of a filename.  Given
FC:AGRE;PARALLEL.LSP#7, PARALL.LSP is the "root", the name of the file, and 
FC:AGRE;...#7 just give incidental information telling you what device it came\n from, what directory it was filed under, and which version of the file this is.
You want a warning whenever you try to create a buffer for a file with the same
filename root as that of an existing buffer modulo syntax, so that 
FC:DANIEL;PARALLEL.LSP#2 and AI:BATALI;PARALL 5 would give errors with 
FC:AGRE;PARALLEL.LSP#7 already having a buffer but FC:AGRE;PARALL.LSP#7,
FC:AGRE;PARALLEL.DOC#7, and AI:AGRE;PARALL NOTES wouldn't.  The FC root is
NAME.EXT, the ITS root is NAME if FN2 is numeric and NAME.FN2 if it isn't.
There are screw cases, but there are always screw cases when converting 
between different file formats.  Perhaps if the definition is made broad enough
and the warning mild enough people won't scream too loudly.  It would help if
it offered you something in return for the warning, like the ability to do a
quick source-compare at a keystroke.    - phIl