Re: opening /tmp//foo doesn't work.

[Alfred M\. Szmidt]

   This is not about standards, but about what is the expected
   behaviour.

Which was my point, there is no `expected behaviour'.

   > As for the side-effect behaviour you suggest, I think it would
   > confuse the hell out of me aleast...

   I don't think so. In the case of /tmp//foo /foo will be searched
   for first and that's what will be loaded and what is meant.

What if I meant to create /foo and /tmp/foo just happens to exist?
Right now you get a very nice and consitent behaviour.

Your example only shows one specific case where it would be a nice
thing to do, doing it in general would simply confuse people I think.

Consider the case where you wish to create the file /etc/foo.conf,
your current working directory is /home/ams.  So what you will try to
do is to open /home/ams//etc/foo.conf, since /etc/foo.conf doesn't
exist, you end up opening /home/ams/etc/foo.conf, i.e. not what you
want at all.

Right now // has a single specific meaning, the less special cases the
better IMHO.