On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 8:09 AM, Paul Smith <psm...@gnu.org> wrote: > One last thing: it is NOT necessary that the target of a symlink exist! > Just because you can create the link without error doesn't meant that > the link can be resolved. In fact a number of programs use this feature > to good advantage, since creating a symlink is an atomic operation on > the filesystem, for creating lock files, etc. where the target of the > symlink is not a file at all, but rather some useful information related > to the lock (etc.) If the information you want to keep is small this is > MUCH more efficient than open/write/close for a real file: it's one > (atomic) system call.
Can you point to a specific program that uses symlinks in this way? I never thought of using it like that - it sounds pretty inventive so I'd like to see it in action :) Thanks! -Mike _______________________________________________ Help-make mailing list Help-make@gnu.org https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-make
