[ ... ]

   (make-pathname :name "foo.tar" :type "gz")

   (make-pathname :name "foo" :type "tar.gz")

are wrought with difficulty.

For Common Lisp these are two non-equal pathnames, so the namestrings

--if they exist-- should be non-equal.

SBCL takes the stance that the first one has the namestring

"foo.tar.gz", and that the second one has no namestring -- another

implementation could take the opposite stance, though I freely submit

that IMO disallowing dots in types is less problematic than

disallowing them in names.

The issue with (make-pathname :name "foo.bar" :type nil) is identical.

Cheers,

 -- Nikodemus