Re: Difference in ln/ln -s semantics

[Eric Blake]

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According to Jim Meyering on 2/2/2009 6:06 AM:
>>
>>   For semantic differences between ln and ln -s see the examples section.
> 
> Thanks.  Either would be good.
> Would you like to adjust doc/coreutils.texi accordingly?

The coreutils.texi documentation is already lengthy:

|    A "hard link" is another name for an existing file; the link and the
| original are indistinguishable.  Technically speaking, they share the
| same inode, and the inode contains all the information about a
| file--indeed, it is not incorrect to say that the inode _is_ the file.
| On all existing implementations, you cannot make a hard link to a
| directory, and hard links cannot cross file system boundaries.  (These
| restrictions are not mandated by POSIX, however.)
|
|    "Symbolic links" ("symlinks" for short), on the other hand, are a
| special file type (which not all kernels support: System V release 3
| (and older) systems lack symlinks) in which the link file actually
| refers to a different file, by name.  When most operations (opening,
| reading, writing, and so on) are passed the symbolic link file, the
| kernel automatically "dereferences" the link and operates on the target
| of the link.  But some operations (e.g., removing) work on the link
| file itself, rather than on its target.  *Note Symbolic Links:
| (libc)Symbolic Links.

[By the way, POSIX 2008 mandates symlinks on all systems; about the only
system worth porting to these days that still lacks symlink support is the
non-POSIX mingw]

> If you change the man page (aka --help output), bear in mind
> that is should stay concise.  It does point to the complete
> documentation in the info pages after all.

The trick is coming up with a concise statement for the --help output
which might help here.

- --
Don't work too hard, make some time for fun as well!

Eric Blake             address@hidden
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