bin/84298: [patch] allow mount(8) to recognize relative pathnames as mountpoints

[Brooks Davis]

The following reply was made to PR bin/84298; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Brooks Davis <brooks at one-eyed-alien.net>
To: Mikolaj Rydzewski <miki at ma.krakow.pl>
Cc: FreeBSD-gnats-submit at freebsd.org
Subject: Re: bin/84298: [patch] allow mount(8) to recognize relative pathnames as mountpoints
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2005 09:06:56 -0700

 > >Description:
 > 	Current version of mount(8) requires to specify absolute mountpoint
 > 	pathname. Let's assume one has some mountpoints located in /mnt:
 > 	/mnt/cdrom, /mnt/floppy, /mnt/usb
 > 	It should be possible to call mount(8) like this:
 > 	mount cdrom (assuming the current directory is /mnt). It has
 > 	more practical impact when system is configured to allow non-root
 > 	users to mount (cdroms, usb sticks) to mountpoints in their home
 > 	directories. It's much more flexible to run mount ~/usb than 
 > 	mount /home/<username>/usb.
 
 Not really an objection, but this last example is bogus.  As the example
 below shows, tcsh, bash, sh, and csh all make this work since ~expansion
 happens before the command is run by the shell:
 
 [7:22pm] brooks at pagefault (/usr/ports): echo ~brooks
 /usr/home/brooks
 [9:04am] brooks at pagefault (/usr/ports): bash
 brooks at pagefault$ echo ~brooks
 /usr/home/brooks
 brooks at pagefault$ exit
 [9:04am] brooks at pagefault (/usr/ports): sh
 $ echo ~brooks
 /usr/home/brooks
 $ [9:04am] brooks at pagefault (/usr/ports): csh
 [9:04am] brooks at pagefault (/usr/ports): echo ~brooks
 /usr/home/brooks
 [9:04am] brooks at pagefault (/usr/ports): exit
 
 -- Brooks