Cell-Relative Naming in a Hierarchy of Cells
In a hierarchy of cells, cell-relative names and local names may not be the same. A parent cell can reference a name in a child cell using cell-relative naming (/.:). Consequently, you can no longer determine whether a cell is in your local cell by merely looking at its name. In the following example, the child cell (eng) is named relative to its parent cell:
/.:/eng
This type of naming allows you to access names in a child cell (for example, /.:/eng/hosts/admin) from the parent cell, without having to specify the global name of the cell.
Note: When referencing names in a child cell from a parent cell, you should be mindful that your status is that of a foreign user. Therefore, the child cell may have access controls imposed on it that will deny you access to its namespace.