From owner-freebsd-hackers Sat Jul 11 19:07:14 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id TAA00638 for freebsd-hackers-outgoing; Sat, 11 Jul 1998 19:07:14 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from smtp01.primenet.com (root@smtp01.primenet.com [206.165.6.131]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id TAA00616 for ; Sat, 11 Jul 1998 19:07:11 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from tlambert@usr08.primenet.com) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by smtp01.primenet.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id RAA11446; Sat, 11 Jul 1998 17:56:15 -0700 (MST) Received: from usr08.primenet.com(206.165.6.208) via SMTP by smtp01.primenet.com, id smtpd011404; Sat Jul 11 17:56:05 1998 Received: (from tlambert@localhost) by usr08.primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id RAA16154; Sat, 11 Jul 1998 17:56:00 -0700 (MST) From: Terry Lambert Message-Id: <199807120056.RAA16154@usr08.primenet.com> Subject: Re: Improvemnet of ln(1). To: joelh@gnu.org Date: Sun, 12 Jul 1998 00:56:00 +0000 (GMT) Cc: tlambert@primenet.com, dchapes@ddm.on.ca, rminnich@Sarnoff.COM, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG In-Reply-To: <199807111525.KAA13574@detlev.UUCP> from "Joel Ray Holveck" at Jul 11, 98 10:25:34 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL25] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > >>> I've many times used ln(1) to create what you call 'questionable links' > >>> on purpose and I'd _hate_ warnings. > >> You frequently link to files that don't exist? I generally consider > >> that to be putting the cart before the cat(1), er, horse. But it's > >> your system. > > I don't do it frequently, but yes, I do this occasionally. > > Then occasionally getting a warning wouldn't be a bad thing. Except I like "make world" to complete without issuing any warnings. The most fundamental thing you can do with a system, building itself, should not be fraught with warnings, IMO. > Yes, you could. I do that quite frequently. (You can imagine my > ~/hp9000-hpux/bin directory, full of compatibility scripts.) But is > this a problem that only exists for a few users and would annoy many > (which would mean that we few should use the scripts), or does it > exist for many and would annoy few (which would mean we should modify > ln)? A better place to put this would be a "ln" shell built-in. > > Whereas in order to get the existing non-"-f" behaviour, I'd have to > > modify existing code. > > A warning message wouldn't break your existing code. Again, we're not > proposing a prompt here, just a diagnostic that you can ignore if > you're intentionally linking to a non-existant file. A warning implies a seperate exit code, which I can check for, so I can see if the program completed with no errors or warnings before proceeding onto the next operation. Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message