-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 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 e...@byu.net -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (Cygwin) Comment: Public key at home.comcast.net/~ericblake/eblake.gpg Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAkmG8T4ACgkQ84KuGfSFAYB//ACbBjudPs+E8lL43aNjMoFAuydV 8vIAn3XG2SrrSqSqzZ3W6ERvPJra4T7N =GWSF -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Bug-coreutils mailing list Bug-coreutils@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-coreutils