Daniel W Gelder <daniel.w.gel...@gmail.com> writes: > The original question seems to be how to maintain links when the file > is moved or renamed. Perhaps the file could have a unique ID in the > file system, and the link would try the given pathname, but if it's > not there, try the unique ID. Would that work?
That's about what is done by MacOS and MacOSX (at least on HFS, I don't know if they do the same on UFS). This let aliases to keep working when you move the target files. So aliases, which in a way are more like symbol links (if you delete the target file and recreate it in the same path, then the alias will refer the new file), actually behave more like symbolic links in that you can move the target file, and the alias will still refer it. Now the question, is what happens if you move away the original target, and recreat a new one in the old path? As a MacOS and then MacOSX user, I DO NOT KNOW! I would have to try it. The point is that the semantics of symbolic links and of hard links are clear and easy to understand, and manipulate. The semantics of MacOS and MacOSX aliases are not. And I don't know anything about links in MS-Windows (I'd expect they'd work as broken Mac aliases). There's some level of DWIM in that. The question should be whether we want a system that DWIM, or whether we want a system that implement simple and composable operations that can easily be understood and used? -- __Pascal Bourguignon__ http://www.informatimago.com/ “The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.” -- Carl Bass CEO Autodesk _______________________________________________ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
