Hello, Symlink is one of ugly things in unix. For example, my mac shows:
-bash$ ls -l /usr/bin/vi lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 3 11 18 2014 /usr/bin/vi -> vim -bash$ This expression is something like a thorn. Irregular fields makes things difficult. The entity of /usr/bin/vi is /usr/bin/vim, which is -bash$ ls -l /usr/bin/vim -rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 1530240 6 24 2016 /usr/bin/vim -bash$ I guess Russ hated the irregularity. In plan9port we have -bash$ 9 ls -l /usr/bin/vi -Lrwxr-xr-x M 0 root wheel 3 Jun 24 2016 /usr/bin/vi -bash$ but I wander why this isn't -bash$ 9 ls -l /usr/bin/vi -Lrwxr-xr-x M 0 root wheel 1530240 Jun 24 2016 /usr/bin/vi -bash$ This comes from $P9P/src/lib9/_p9dir.c if(S_ISLNK(lst->st_mode)){ /* yes, lst not st */ d->mode |= DMSYMLINK; d->length = lst->st_size; <----- why Russ put this code? } Any merit? Kenji Arisawa