🚀 go-pugleaf

   I ftp'd GNU Emacs version 18.57 from prep.ai.mit.edu and built
it using m-iris4d.h and s-irix3-3.h (we're running IRIX 3.3.1 -- 
essentially Unix System V -- on a Silicon Graphics IRIS 4D). 
Emacs cannot find stuff in my home directory.  It fails to read my
.emacs file, and can't find files that I specify as ~/whatever.
 
   The cause seems to be that in my /etc/passwd entry, my home
directory has a trailing slash. 
 
lnds:8wqzYCkiP/XgU:207:200:Mark Israel:/usr/dept/lnds/:/bin/csh
 
   When HOME is "/usr/dept/lnds", Emacs can find ~/.emacs, but
when HOME is "/usr/dept/lnds/", it can't.
 
   I had been under the impression that the terminating slash 
served a valuable purpose:  if my directory is a symbolic
link and people cd to it, they know where they really are.  Is it
true, as one source tells me, that a directory string with a 
terminating slash means something special to BSD-derived systems,
but not to SVR3-derived systems like Irix?  Is it true, as another
source tells me, that Emacs's supposed failure to parse "//" in 
paths makes it non-POSIX-compliant?  Why is there no mention of
this in the PROBLEMS file?  I can't believe that I'm the first
person to experience this problem.
 
                                 Mark Israel
 I have heard the Wobble!        userisra@mts.ucs.ualberta.ca