From owner-freebsd-bugs  Mon Apr 28 05:28:32 1997
Return-Path: <owner-bugs>
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id FAA11618
          for bugs-outgoing; Mon, 28 Apr 1997 05:28:32 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from godzilla.zeta.org.au (godzilla.zeta.org.au [203.2.228.19])
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id FAA11607
          for <freebsd-bugs@hub.freebsd.org>; Mon, 28 Apr 1997 05:28:22 -0700 (PDT)
Received: (from bde@localhost) by godzilla.zeta.org.au (8.8.5/8.6.9) id WAA17698; Mon, 28 Apr 1997 22:15:42 +1000
Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997 22:15:42 +1000
From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
Message-Id: <199704281215.WAA17698@godzilla.zeta.org.au>
To: davidn@labs.usn.blaze.net.au, freebsd-bugs@hub.freebsd.org
Subject: Re: bin/3399: mv of symbolic link can move directory instead of link
Sender: owner-bugs@FreeBSD.ORG
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

> > If a symbolic link is entered with a trailing /, the directory it
> > references instead of the link is moved.  This could cause loss of
> > data, if someone assumes that the original directory was not affected.
> 
> Wrong assumption. :-)
> 
> IMHO this a a feature, not a bug. Many programs assume you wish to
> look "through" a symlink if you add the trailing slash. /bin/ls, for
> example. mv's behaviour therefore would seem to be expected.

It is a feature (the trailing slash says to follow the link), but many
systems do it differently.  FreeBSD itself does rmdir differently -
rmdir("symlink/") fails although rename("symlink/", "newname") renames
the direcory pointed to by "symlink" to "newname".  Note that you have
to use rename(2) instead of mv(1) to test this.  mv may rewrite some of
the names.

Bruce