From owner-freebsd-questions Thu Oct 10 5: 8:16 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 43D3A37B47B for ; Thu, 10 Oct 2002 05:08:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nic.upatras.gr (nic.upatras.gr [150.140.129.30]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id CCFF443E9C for ; Thu, 10 Oct 2002 05:08:07 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from keramida@ceid.upatras.gr) Received: (qmail 4088 invoked from network); 10 Oct 2002 12:01:06 -0000 Received: from upnet-dialinpool-103.upnet.gr (HELO hades.hell.gr) (@150.140.128.151) by nic.upatras.gr with SMTP; 10 Oct 2002 12:01:06 -0000 Received: from hades.hell.gr (hades [127.0.0.1]) by hades.hell.gr (8.12.6/8.12.6) with ESMTP id g9AC8950041390; Thu, 10 Oct 2002 15:08:14 +0300 (EEST) (envelope-from keramida@ceid.upatras.gr) Received: (from keramida@localhost) by hades.hell.gr (8.12.6/8.12.6/Submit) id g9ABJFMC036494; Thu, 10 Oct 2002 14:19:15 +0300 (EEST) (envelope-from keramida@ceid.upatras.gr) Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2002 14:19:15 +0300 From: Giorgos Keramidas To: Peter Leftwich Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: help with ln "linking" Please! [attn manpage authors!] Message-ID: <20021010111915.GR21391@hades.hell.gr> References: <20021009220536.F36987-100000@earl-grey.cloud9.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20021009220536.F36987-100000@earl-grey.cloud9.net> Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On 2002-10-09 22:09, Peter Leftwich wrote: > On 8 Oct 2002, Gary W. Swearingen wrote: > > Confusion comes about mostly because the "ls" command shows an arrow > > pointing from the target (AKA destination) to the source, backwards from > > what most people would expect when thinking of source and > > destination/target. The arrow points away from the target! It also > > shows them in reverse order from how they are given to "ln". > > That's a good point, the arrows do point in the "wrong" direction. :) Why? The output below seems fairly obvious and correct when one realises what a symbolic link is: keramida@hades[14:16]/home/keramida$ /bin/ls -l /etc/malloc.conf lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 2 Oct 8 14:25 /etc/malloc.conf -> AJ Leaving the confusion of the words `target' and `source' that you have been discussing aside, and thinking about it in terms of implementation, it is malloc.conf that `points to' something named `AJ'. There is nothing wrong with the arrow. malloc.conf is a symbolic link, that references by name something named "AJ". Therefore, malloc.conf `points to another entity' named "AJ. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message