truename, merge-pathnames, etc.

[sandra%orion@cs.utah.edu (Sandra J Loosemore)]

I'm having a problem with incorrect expansion of pathnames under VMS, when
logical names are used.  The problem happens when I, or the Lisp runtime, does
something like

    (merge-pathnames "LIBRARY:" *default-pathname-defaults*)

My logical name "LIBRARY:" is likely to translate to a string that supplies
both a device and directory.  However, the Lisp doesn't do the translation and
is instead pulling the directory from *default-pathname-defaults*, with the
end result that it builds up a pathname pointing to the wrong place.  I can't
use TRUENAME to force translation of the logical name first, because it 
complains about not being able to find a file that matches the incomplete
specification.  And, I can't build up a complete file specification to give
to TRUENAME because of the other problem.  Perhaps we need another function
like TRUENAME that just does the name translation without checking to see
that the file exists?

-Sandra
-------