Symbolic links comments
Dick Dunn
rcd at opus.UUCP
Fri Jun 22 15:27:48 AEST 1984
> 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!
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