Date: Mon, 24 Feb 2020 02:08:23 +0100 From: Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> To: "Steve O'Hara-Smith" <steve@sohara.org> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org, Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> Subject: Re: rm | Cleaning up recycle bin Message-ID: <20200224020823.2462aad4.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <20200223182411.81a22ce74509b8778a39d8d3@sohara.org> References: <a589bf69-a53b-a732-08ff-74e09b723bbd@cloudzeeland.nl> <20200223184908.b35d656a.freebsd@edvax.de> <20200223182411.81a22ce74509b8778a39d8d3@sohara.org>
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On Sun, 23 Feb 2020 18:24:11 +0000, Steve O'Hara-Smith wrote: > Multiple entries for the same file are quite common for binaries, > for example /bin/csh and /bin/tcsh are links to the same file, or for that > matter nearly everything in /rescue is a link to the same file. When there > are multiple links to a file none of them are special, they're all just > links. Technically, they serve a very specific purpose: When a program is invoked, it can query argv[0] for the name it was called with. In case of "csh" vs. "tcsh", this can affect the shell's behaviour. It's even more obvious for all the programs in /rescue, where for example "cp" and "ps" point to the same binary, but make that binary do totally different things when invoked. While a symbolic link (symlink) is, as their name suggests, just a symbolic name for a different file or directory, a hardlink is actually just an additional name for a file, and there is no precedence in hard links (like with symlinks, "_this_ is a reference, but _that_ is the original); they're all originals. That's why a hardlink can never cross the border of a filesystem, while a symlink can. On Sun, 23 Feb 2020 18:58:18 -0600, Valeri Galtsev wrote: > Thank you, Steve! Very educational. We (I at least) sometimes > forget fundamentals. That's why my little addition for educational completeness. ;-) -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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