using utimes(2) to change the time of a link
Arnold Robbins
arnold at gatech.CSNET
Thu Aug 1 03:23:41 AEST 1985
In article <266 at brl-tgr.ARPA>, gwyn at brl-tgr.ARPA (Doug Gwyn <gwyn>) writes:
> Why are there so many inquiries about doing things to the symbolic
> links instead of to the files to which they point? It doesn't seem
> to be necessary..
It sure is necessary if you're writing/using a file system backup program.
I've been converting a really nice program from System V to 4.2 BSD, and
symbolic links have been the hardest part. As it currently stands, when
restoring a symbolic link, you can't restore the mod time on the link itself,
or change the mode. (In fact, I have to now add code to check for that!)
I hope 4.3 cleans up some of their semantics. For instance, the following
code creates a symlink that 'ls' says is l--------- (mode 000):
...
umask (0777);
symlink ("old", "new");
...
'new' is mode 000, but a readlink(new,...) will succeed! I'm not sure exactly
what should happen, but I don't think the readlink should succeed.
In sum, I think symbolic links are nifty things, but there are some things
about them that could use redefining (or at least clarifying).
--
Arnold Robbins
CSNET: arnold at gatech ARPA: arnold%gatech.csnet at csnet-relay.arpa
UUCP: { akgua, allegra, hplabs, ihnp4, seismo, ut-sally }!gatech!arnold
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