note Dominus Says [tye]: <blockquote> Too bad Unix didn't provide an efficient way to save/restore chdir context (based on i-node instead of on a path string). </blockquote> Many unixes now provide an <tt>fchdir</tt> call which does what you want; instead of a pathname, it accepts an open file descriptor and then sets the cwd to the directory pointed to by the descriptor. To save the old cwd, you simply open the current directory. After you've done <tt>chdir</tt>, you can <tt>fchdir</tt> to the descriptor returned by the <tt>open</tt> when you want to go back. You can't have a system call that simply accepts an i-number, because such a call would bypass the filesystem's permission controls. -- <a href="mailto:mjd-www-perlmonks+@plover.com">Mark Dominus</a> <a href="http://perl.plover.com">Perl Paraphernalia</a> 248935 249087