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From: kenner@lab.ultra.nyu.edu (Richard Kenner)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: POSIX and symbolic links ????
Date: 6 Nov 1994 21:14:40 GMT
Organization: New York University Ultracomputer Research Lab
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References: <CyqtLL.9AI@celsiustech.se> <39jgdi$bsq@gnat.cs.nyu.edu>
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Date: 1994-11-06T21:14:40+00:00
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In article <39jgdi$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".