The // directory

[SteveRiley]

OK, this was unexpected:

steve@t520:~$ [B]cd /[/B]
steve@t520:/

steve@t520:/$ [B]cd //[/B]
steve@t520://    [I][COLOR="#B22222"]<--- What is this I don't even[/COLOR][/I]

steve@t520://$ [B]pwd[/B]
//

steve@t520://$ [B]ls -al[/B]
total 16
drwxr-xr-x   1 root root  226 Feb 25 13:18 .
drwxr-xr-x   1 root root  226 Feb 25 13:18 ..
drwxr-xr-x   1 root root 2314 Mar  5 09:19 bin
drwxr-xr-x   1 root root  626 Feb 25 13:22 boot
drwxr-xr-x  17 root root 4220 Mar  3 13:47 dev
drwxr-xr-x   1 root root 4636 Mar  8 21:35 etc
drwxr-xr-x   1 root root   30 Dec 21 00:42 home
drwxr-xr-x   1 root root  832 Feb 27 09:57 lib
drwxr-xr-x   1 root root 1304 Feb 27 09:57 lib32
drwxr-xr-x   1 root root  112 Feb 27 09:57 lib64
drwxr-xr-x   1 root root   54 May 13  2014 media
drwxr-xr-x   1 root root   16 Dec 22 15:05 mnt
drwxr-xr-x   1 root root   50 Feb 27 11:03 opt
dr-xr-xr-x 255 root root    0 Mar  3 13:47 proc
drwx------   1 root root  380 Dec 21 00:42 root
drwxr-xr-x  33 root root 1160 Mar  4 09:14 run
drwxr-xr-x   1 root root 3906 Feb 27 09:57 sbin
drwxr-xr-x   1 root root    0 Apr 16  2014 srv
dr-xr-xr-x  13 root root    0 Mar  4 22:22 sys
drwxrwxrwt  14 root root  380 Mar  8 21:46 tmp
drwxr-xr-x   1 root root   80 Dec  2 13:24 usr
drwxr-xr-x   1 root root  114 May 10  2014 var

OK, so // = /. But why does it exist?

[kubicle]

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2...-mean-in-linux

(doesn't happen with zsh, btw)

[SteveRiley]

Thanks. "Implementation-defined manner." That's...comforting!

[jlittle]

// = /. But why does it exist?

It doesn't really, bash just calls it that because you called it that. If I

cd $HOME
ln -s / foo
cd foo
pwd
/home/john/foo
/bin/pwd
/

[SteveRiley]

OK, that just kinda blew my mind.

[jlittle]

Curiously, cd ///, or cd /////////////////////////////////// does not do it. // seems a special case.

[kubicle]

Curiously, cd ///, or cd /////////////////////////////////// does not do it.

POSIX rules (http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs...ml#tag_04_11):

A pathname that begins with two successive slashes may be interpreted in an implementation-defined manner, although more than two leading slashes shall be treated as a single slash.