From owner-freebsd-current Fri Jun 15 23:57:24 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from smtp.wanadoo.nl (larry.euronet.nl [194.134.35.138]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 20FDC37B41F for ; Fri, 15 Jun 2001 23:57:05 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from steveo@eircom.net) Received: from ams-gw.sohara.org (p614.vcu.wanadoo.nl [194.134.201.142]) by smtp.wanadoo.nl (8.11.3/8.11.3) with SMTP id f5G6usN12899; Sat, 16 Jun 2001 08:56:54 +0200 (MEST) Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2001 08:56:51 +0200 From: "Steve O'Hara-Smith" To: Bruce Evans Cc: david@catwhisker.org, current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: symlink(2) [Was: Re: tcsh.cat] Message-Id: <20010616085651.29684596.steveo@eircom.net> In-Reply-To: References: <20010615183515.36f81380.steveo@eircom.net> X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.4.99cvs3 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386-unknown-freebsdelf4.3) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Sat, 16 Jun 2001 14:34:07 +1000 (EST) Bruce Evans wrote: BE> We are (or at least I am) talking about changing it to prevent links to a BE> string that can _never_ be a valid pathname. Fortunately, in POSIX there BE> is only one such string (the empty string). Maybe, but it seems a harmless special case to me, and others seem to find it useful. BE> Here's an example of a standard utility being clueless about symlinks to BE> nothing: BE> BE> $ ln -s '' foo BE> $ cp foo bar BE> cp: foo is a directory (not copied) That *is* broken, it should make bar a symlink to '' IMHO. BE> cp is also broken for symlinks to valid pathnames for nonexistent files; BE> BE> $ rm -f foo BE> $ ln -s /nonesuch foo BE> $ cp foo bar BE> BE> This duplicates foo as a symlink, but should just fail. This is correct behaviour IMHO - why on earth should it fail. If I copy a directory containing symlinks I don't want them do vanish just because the target is unavailable. -- Directable Mirrors - A Better Way To Focus The Sun http://www.best.com/~sohara To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message