From: Sam Roberts <sroberts@...>
Date: 2004-03-21T03:20:25+09:00
Subject: Re: Can $LOAD_PATH be relative?

Quoteing patrick.bennett@inin.com, on Sun, Mar 21, 2004 at 02:18:01AM +0900:
> >P> No, I needed to define a Ruby tree that could be installed (through 
> >P> source control checkout) *anywhere* by a user.  'Fixed' paths are IMO, 
> >P> unacceptable.  It works quite well in Windows.  I was really surprised 
> >P> to find that it was all hard-coded for *nix installs.
> >
> >security problem

How (it's impossible) to find a process's executable file in Unix is a
FAQ:

  http://www.erlenstar.demon.co.uk/unix/faq_2.html#SEC23

Executables in unix don't have a knowledge of "where they are". They
don't, in fact, have to "be" anywhere. Some are even built into the boot
image, so don't in fact have to have ever "been" anywhere.

Do I recall you saying that you'd hacked ruby to get it's executable
location? I'd like to see that hack, I'm pretty confident I can think up
a number of cases where it wouldn't work.

Also, why would you think that something that is a security concern in
unix would be in windows? Windows isn't even a multi-user OS! It also
doesn't support hard or symbolic links, or set-user-id flags on
executables, or allow you to delete a running executable, you can in
unix.

Cheers,
Sam