find(1) and symbolic links

[Alistair Crooks]

On our Suns, running Sun Unix(TM) 4.2 BSD, Releases 1.2, 1.3, 1.4,
a find(1) will fail when the pathname-list is a symbolic link.

The problem can be repeated by linking symbolically to the /usr/bin
directory fom my home directory, for example, calling it pathname-list,
and executing

	find pathname-list -name find -print

from my home directory.

find does not seem to expand the link, or use readlink(), or anything
else. Is it meant to, or should a find just give no output,
as though there weren't any files?

Current thinking seems to be that if a bug is documented, it is a feature.
I have looked at the manual entry, but can see

	i)  no references to links (symbolic or otherwise) being handled
	    differently to other directory entries

or	ii) any disclaimer in the BUGS section of the manual. 

Stop Press : Sun Release 2 also shows this.
Any comments...

Alistair G. Crooks
BSO Eindhoven/Oce Nederland b.v.
{seismo,philabs,decvax,ucbvax}!mcvax!oce-rd1!qacr
{seismo,philabs,decvax,ucbvax}!mcvax!bsovax!ocealis


-- 
Alistair G. Crooks
BSO Eindhoven/Oce Nederland b.v.
{seismo,philabs,decvax,ucbvax}!mcvax!oce-rd1!qacr
{seismo,philabs,decvax,ucbvax}!mcvax!bsovax!ocealis