SYS:SITE; A novice adminstrator's question

[rwk@crl.dec.com (Robert W. Kerns)]

    Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1991 16:49-0400
    From: barmar@think.com (Barry Margolin)
	Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1991 10:45 EDT
	From: delaney@xn.ll.mit.edu (John R. Delaney)
	It appears from the namespace description that the site object site
	directory attribute should give the translation for "SYS: SITE;", e.g.,
	"<some host>:>SITE>". It would also appear that this translation take
	precedence over the above. That is, if I copied a file to "SYS: SITE;
	FOO.SYSTEM" some time long after booting, it would end up in "<some
	host>:>SITE>FOO.SYSTEM".

    I reported this as a bug several years ago.  Yes, the translation of
    SYS:SITE; is done by looking at the namespace, not the translation list.

You may have reported it as a bug, but the reason it wasn't
changed is that it isn't a bug.  It's a documented, clearly
desirable feature.  Otherwise, you'd sometimes have it one
way, and sometimes have it the other.

In fact, originally, you COULD explicitly override the namespace
by having an EXPLICIT definition for SYS:SITE; in your sys.translations
file.  Unfortunately, doing so causes a bit of chaos since it
has to look at the namespace to even find the SYS:SITE;SYS.TRANSLATIONS
file.

The :TRANSLATIONS argument to FS:SET-LOGICAL-PATHNAME-HOST is just data
for a small part of the entire mechanism for translating logical pathnames.
Most translation rules do look at this data, but it is the rules which
drive the process, not the translations.

For a good time, do (FS:DESCRIBE-LOGICAL-HOST "SYS").  The rules it
shows you used to be a *LOT* more extensive, back when Symbolics
supported non-BSD 4.2+ unixes and pre-VMS4 VMS systems as SYS hosts.
There was even a tool to determine when new rules would be needed to
successfully install the system, since it was far too complex to manage
manually.

I would hope when you reported it as a bug, that you at least got a reply
informing you it wasn't a bug and refering you to the documentation.