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From: martin@noscvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.unix
Subject: Symbolic links question
Message-ID: <521@noscvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-Jun-84 12:07:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: noscvax.521
Posted: Wed Jun 13 12:07:42 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 15-Jun-84 00:19:12 EDT
Organization: Naval Ocean Systems Center
Lines: 13


    Given the command 'ln -s foo foo.sl', which creates a symbolic link
to an arbitrary file foo,
Is there any documentation on which commands operate on foo, and which
operate on foo.sl?
Commands such as ls, mv, and rm operate on foo.sl, whereas commands
like cat, cp, and grep, given foo.sl as an argument, operate on foo.
That is, 'mv foo.sl foo2' results in foo2 having the type 'symbolic link',
whereas 'cp foo.sl foo2' makes foo2 a duplicate of foo.
How can I determine, other than trial-and-error which commands use foo.sl and which
use foo?
Doug Martin
martin@nosc