From owner-freebsd-current  Fri Jun 15 22: 2: 0 2001
Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org
Received: from earth.backplane.com (earth-nat-cw.backplane.com [208.161.114.67])
	by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9B43637B408
	for <current@FreeBSD.ORG>; Fri, 15 Jun 2001 22:01:50 -0700 (PDT)
	(envelope-from dillon@earth.backplane.com)
Received: (from dillon@localhost)
	by earth.backplane.com (8.11.3/8.11.2) id f5G51lf58001;
	Fri, 15 Jun 2001 22:01:47 -0700 (PDT)
	(envelope-from dillon)
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 22:01:47 -0700 (PDT)
From: Matt Dillon <dillon@earth.backplane.com>
Message-Id: <200106160501.f5G51lf58001@earth.backplane.com>
To: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>
Cc: "Steve O'Hara-Smith" <steveo@eircom.net>,
	David Wolfskill <david@catwhisker.org>, current@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: symlink(2) [Was: Re: tcsh.cat]
References:  <Pine.BSF.4.21.0106161355360.89789-100000@besplex.bde.org>
Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG
Precedence: bulk
List-ID: <freebsd-current.FreeBSD.ORG>
List-Archive: <http://docs.freebsd.org/mail/> (Web Archive)
List-Help: <mailto:majordomo?subject=help> (List Instructions)
List-Subscribe: <mailto:majordomo?subject=subscribe%20freebsd-current>
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:majordomo?subject=unsubscribe%20freebsd-current>
X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG

:...
:> 	It has been on evey platform I have ever used ln -s on.
:> 
:> DW> One may well argue that this is "broken" in some way(s).  Still, changing
:> DW> it at this point could well be considered  a POLA violation, at best.
:> 
:> 	I would argue loud and long that changing that *would* be broken. There
:> is never a guarantee (or even an implication) that a symlink points to a
:> valid directory entry (think unmounted filesystems, NFS ...). I find it hard
:> to imagine why creation time should be special in that regard.
:
:We are (or at least I am) talking about changing it to prevent links to a
:string that can _never_ be a valid pathname.  Fortunately, in POSIX there
:is only one such string (the empty string).

    Symlinks do not have to contain paths.  People use them for all sorts
    of things so it would be totally inappropriate to put any sort of
    restriction on the data you can store as a symlink.  For example,
    symlink() is the *ONLY* system call that is atomic across all
    flavors of NFS.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with creating
    a symlink that is "".

						-Matt


To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message