referring to a file on the local network by name?

[Dr. Hawkins]

Is there a "clean" way to refer to a shared file on another machine by name?

For example, on mac, the file central.local:/Users/joe/joesfile.txt

could end up in /Volumes/joe/joesfile.txt, or /Volumes/joe-1/joesfile.txt,
depending upon how many times the connection had been made.

I can see hacky ways to parse the contents of volumes, but it would be nice
to just be able to do things like

   put theList into url "file:central.local:/Users/joe/joesfile.txt"

or some such.

The context is that the client files and output should land on the server,
not the local machine.

-- 
Dr. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq.
(702) 508-8462