Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!occrsh!uokmax!apple!usc!samsung!uunet!crdgw1!sagittarius!dixon
From: dixon@sagittarius.crd.ge.com (walt dixon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: 'link'ing a la U*IX in DOS
Message-ID: <8153@crdgw1.crd.ge.com>
Date: 3 Jun 90 18:23:56 GMT
References: <1990Jun1.193543.13903@ccu.umanitoba.ca> <1990Jun3.054243.11711@druid.uucp>
Sender: news@crdgw1.crd.ge.com
Reply-To: dixon@sagittarius.crd.ge.com (walt dixon)
Organization: General Electric Corp. R&D, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 30

In article 1990Jun3.054243.11711@druid.uucp D'Arcy J.M. Cain (darcy@druid) 
writes:
 
>In article <1990Jun1.193543.13903@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
>umhudso7@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Wayne Hudson) writes:

>>I'm running DOS 3.3 on a '286 that's stretched in memory and disk space.
>>What I'm looking for is something that will let me make symbolic links,
>>like U*IX.
>>
>>(ie. have file E:\FOOBAR\REPORT.FOO point to the actual file,
>>D:\RALPH\HEER.XXX)

>You can't do it with DOS.  Get a Unix system.

This statement isn't strictly true.  The directory entry for a file
contains the starting cluster on disk.  One could create a second
directory entry and insert the appropriate starting cluster.  There
are a couple of side effects from this hack.  Chkdsk will find clusters
that are multiply allocated.  Also it is possible to confuse DOS.  In
unix a reference count in the inode(?) keeps the file from being deleted
out from under a symbolic link.  There's no such facility within DOS.

Walt Dixon	{internet:	dixon@crd.ge.com	}
		{us mail:	ge-crd			}
		{		po box 8		}
		{		schenectady, ny 12301	}
		{phone:		518-387-5798		}

Walt Dixon dixon@crd.ge.com