Re: mkdir when target exists and is a broken symlink

[Paul Eggert]

address@hidden (Eric Blake) writes:

> POSIX requires that touch do the equivalent of calling creat() if
> the file does not exist, then call utime() whether or not creat()
> was called.  A broken symlink exists,

Not unless the program is specifically mentioned by POSIX
as one that does not follow symlinks.  'touch' is not
such a program, so it follows symlinks, so it considers
the file to not exist, so it issues creat() and the
creat() follows the symlink to create the file.