From: kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner)
Subject: Re: POSIX and symbolic links ????
Date: 6 Nov 1994 21:14:40 GMT
Date: 1994-11-06T21:14:40+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <39jh00$b65@cmcl2.NYU.EDU> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 39jgdi$bsq@gnat.cs.nyu.edu
In article <39jgdi$bsq@gnat.cs.nyu.edu> dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
>In a way it is a shame if a program *can* detect a symbolic link, because
>then it means that symbolic links would not be transparent, and the great
>attraction of this facility is precisely the transparency.
No, it's only important that the standard ways of accessing files
handle symbolic links transparently. There's no problem in providing
a separate mechanism that can be used to see if a file is a symbolic
link. You clearly need such a thing. If you didn't how would "ls" work
and display the link? There are other programs, such as tar, that have
a legitimate reason to know. Also, other similar file maintenance-type
programs such as "du".
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1994-11-06 21:14 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 4+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1994-11-04 12:34 POSIX and symbolic links ???? Fredrik Olsson
1994-11-06 21:04 ` Robert Dewar
1994-11-06 21:14 ` Richard Kenner [this message]
1994-11-07 11:41 ` David Emery
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