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From: rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: net.unix
Subject: Symbolic links comments
Message-ID: <544@opus.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 22-Jun-84 01:27:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: opus.544
Posted: Fri Jun 22 01:27:48 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 22-Jun-84 05:15:40 EDT
References: <521@noscvax.UUCP>
Organization: NBI, Boulder
Lines: 27

>    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?
>...
>How can I determine, other than trial-and-error which commands use
>foo.sl and which use foo?

I stumbled into a funny recently which suggests that trial-and-error is the
only approach which works:  If foo.sl is a symbolic link to a directory,
	ls foo.sl
lists the contents of the directory referenced by foo.sl, but
	ls -l foo.sl
shows information about the link itself.  I didn't scrounge around to see
if this be bug or feature, but the inconsistency is a damned nuisance.

Symbolic links also give the file system a property which can take you by
surprise:  If your current directory is x, and it contains a symbolic link
y which refers to another directory, the sequence
	cd y
	cd ..
does NOT take you back to x.  It's obvious enough if you think about it,
but it can throw a wrench into a carelessly written script.  Symbolic links
ARE useful, but they ARE NOT transparent.
-- 
Dick Dunn	{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd		(303)444-5710 x3086
	...Cerebus for dictator!