Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!ucsd!ucbvax!agate!eris.berkeley.edu!mwm
From: mwm@eris.berkeley.edu (Mike (I'll think of something yet) Meyer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: yet another 1.4 request
Message-ID: <25797@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 27 Jun 89 02:46:54 GMT
References: <0933.AA0933@caleb> <1989Jun16.151408.8382@ziebmef.uucp> <3940@sugar.hackercorp.com> <19856@cup.portal.com>
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: mwm@eris.berkeley.edu (Mike (I'll think of something yet) Meyer)
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Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica
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In article <19856@cup.portal.com> FelineGrace@cup.portal.com (Dana B Bourgeois) writes:
<Anybody out there want to suggest a half-dozen or so uses for a
<soft link?  And maybe a few for a hard link?  I can think of some
<trivial uses but what do you really need 'em for?

First, a quick non-technical definition of hard & soft links. Hard
links are two names for the same file. Soft links are a reference to a
file elsewhere. To keep from turning your directory tree into a graph,
hard links aren't permitted to directories. Likewise, by their very
nature, you can't put them on different file systems (it's implicit in
the concept of name).

Now, let's look at some uses.

I keep several collections of data around - picture, sounds, brushes,
etc. Now, several of the programs I use that manipulate these things
cause file requesters to open in some fixed location, usually relative
to where they are. This means I need to put all those utilities in the
same tree as the data files, some in the directory above them, some in
the directory with them. This is a pain. Of course, I still haven't
solved the problem of some looking for one directory name, and others
looking for another.

Given soft links, I can put them wherever I please (like on the fast
disk I set aside for current projects), leave the binaries where I
want them (on a seperate spindle), and create symlinks where needed to
the data directories. Soft links ar required for directories.

I'm not sure why Peter thinks hard links have advantages over soft
links. They have different semantincs under cp/rm/mv, which may make
them more appropriate in some cases. On the other hand, I consider
different semantics to be a problem, not a feature. He'll have to
explain that one himself.

	<mike






--
And then I saw her...					Mike Meyer
She was a bright red '64 GTO				mwm@berkeley.edu
With fins and gills like some giant piranha fish,	ucbvax!mwm
Some obscene phallic symbol on wheels.			mwm@ucbjade.BITNET