Re: Ada.Directories

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 17:48:55 +0100, Martin Krischik wrote:

> Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> 
>> On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 12:44:53 +0100, Markus E L wrote:
>> 
>>> Harald Korneliussen wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On Oct 21, 9:40 am, "Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mail...@dmitry-kazakov.de>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> "." is not a hard/soft link, as it cannot be removed.
>>>>
>>>> When did removability become part of the definition of "hard link"?
>>> 
>>> Never it did. This is just what happens to definitions that come into
>>> contact with Dmitry. I've purposely waited seom time (well, even three
>>> weeks) to write this answer. From the fact that Dmitry did not answer
>>> any more one can usually see that he got the point. At least that's my
>>> observation.
>> 
>> No, I still haven't got it. But because we don't have a workable 
>> definition of hard link, it just makes no sense to me to discuss it. And
>> even if we had, it were totally irrelevant to the issue of
>> Ada.Directories.
> 
> Sure we have. Each file is linked at least once and deleted if not.
> 
> I thought the discussion if about when a user is allowed to link / unlink
> what kind of file.

You may not be allowed to remove a link, but that is irrelevant. Access
rights is not a property of link. They are of "owned object."

The question is whether a proper link can be semantically removed. It can.

(I hope that you can erase your street address from the address book even
if the latter lies at your home, as well as that houses without address
books hidden in do not collapse... (:-))

If you want the reason why "." cannot be semantically removed, then it is
because the structure of links is broken (self-recursive). Therefore it
requires special handling, like synchronous deletion/insertion of cycles.

I wonder why this need to be so hotly discussed in c.l.a? Let it be the
most linked link of the world, if that helped us to return back to Ada
discussions...

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de