Re: ln and -F

[Dave Taira <bodhi@hagakure.org>]

On Sun, 21 Jul 2002, Chris Humphries wrote:

> yes, i have just been doing some reading on that, and one should still be able
> to use -F for symlinks, correct?

No, that'd be two different things. `ln -s` creates a symlink. `ln -F`
would create a _hard_ link to a directory.

> so why not enable a logic rule that makes it
> where you have to have -s in conjunction with it, or else it will not work?
>
> I just think that if something is supported, it should be documented if,
> binding it to -s will make it useful and safe?

A hard link to a directory may, potentially, be useful (although I can't
think of any situation off-hand where I'd use one). But it wouldn't
necessarily be safe. Todd Miller says hard links to dirs will confuse
fsck. Sounds like a good reason to me not to use 'em.

This strikes me as filesystem tweaking beyond standard tuning (since
you're potentially breaking a standard tool). If anything, -F should
be documented with a big "warning: do not use unless you know what
you're doing", but then there'd be complaints from people who don't
know how to read a man page, rather than a lack of complaints from
people who don't know how to read source.

[ Dave Taira <bodhi@hagakure.org>                2002.07.20/22:32:44 PDT ]
[ Morlock for Hire                                                       ]
[ %SYSTEM-F-TOOEARLY, please contact your sysadmin at a sensible time.   ]