From owner-freebsd-current  Sat Jun 16 11:20:45 2001
Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org
Received: from critter.freebsd.dk (critter.freebsd.dk [212.242.86.163])
	by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DBA2E37B407
	for <current@FreeBSD.ORG>; Sat, 16 Jun 2001 11:20:31 -0700 (PDT)
	(envelope-from phk@critter.freebsd.dk)
Received: from critter (localhost [127.0.0.1])
	by critter.freebsd.dk (8.11.3/8.11.3) with ESMTP id f5GIJxr89425;
	Sat, 16 Jun 2001 20:19:59 +0200 (CEST)
	(envelope-from phk@critter.freebsd.dk)
To: Jordan Hubbard <jkh@osd.bsdi.com>
Cc: dillon@earth.backplane.com, bde@zeta.org.au, steveo@eircom.net,
	david@catwhisker.org, current@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: symlink(2) [Was: Re: tcsh.cat] 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 15 Jun 2001 22:15:21 PDT."
             <20010615221521A.jkh@osd.bsdi.com> 
Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2001 20:19:59 +0200
Message-ID: <89423.992715599@critter>
From: Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@critter.freebsd.dk>
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

In message <20010615221521A.jkh@osd.bsdi.com>, Jordan Hubbard writes:
>From: Matt Dillon <dillon@earth.backplane.com>
>Subject: Re: symlink(2) [Was: Re: tcsh.cat]
>Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 22:01:47 -0700 (PDT)
>
>>     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
>
>True.  It would break phk's malloc debugging features to disable this,
>for example.

Not only that, but considerning that a symlink can point into a
different filesystem even in normal use, there is no simple way to
validate the valididty of the name.

Consider this symlink:

	ln -s /my_FAT16_filesystem/foo:bar /tmp/blaf

as a silly example of this.

The only two real restrictions on symlinks are that they cannot
contain NUL characters and that '/' means what '/' does in all
filesystem naming on UNIX.

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

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