Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 beta 3/9/83; site microsoft.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!harpo!whuxlm!whuxl!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!microsoft!markz From: markz@microsoft.UUCP (Mark Zbikowski) Newsgroups: net.micro.pc Subject: RE: links in DOS Message-ID: <8776@microsoft.UUCP> Date: Mon, 19-Aug-85 12:47:36 EDT Article-I.D.: microsof.8776 Posted: Mon Aug 19 12:47:36 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 23-Aug-85 06:57:10 EDT Organization: Microsoft Corporation Lines: 14 > [The question is whether, under MS-DOS, one can give a file multiple names > as with the Unix link call.] > > Yes, you can, but no, you shouldn't. It is fairly easy to patch a DOS > directory so that you have more than one name pointing to the same chain > of disk blocks. It's a bad idea, though, because DOS doesn't expect there to > be more than one name for a file and if you delete any of the names, all of > the blocks for the file will be marked free and reused. The main problem with doing this is that when DOS needs to update a directory entry (grow a file, change last-mod time) it needs to be able to QUICKLY locate the directory entry. If there are several directory entries the task of finding them is much more difficult. Linking them together is not reasonable; trying to repair such problems after a crash is difficult at best.