Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!inesc!unl!unl!jpc
From: jpc@fctunl.rccn.pt (Jose Pina Coelho)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: 'link'ing a la U*IX in DOS
Message-ID: <JPC.90Jun4144926@fogo.fctunl.rccn.pt>
Date: 4 Jun 90 13:49:26 GMT
References: <1990Jun1.193543.13903@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Sender: news@fctunl.rccn.pt (USENET News System)
Organization: Universidade Nova de Lisboa -- Lisbon, Portugal
Lines: 46
In-Reply-To: umhudso7@ccu.umanitoba.ca's message of 1 Jun 90 19:35:43 GMT


Well...

A few months ago I was making a program that was supposed to work like
simbolic/hard links.
It was a TSR that caught the INT 21, it only processed  the handle
calls and rename/remove

Physicaly both hard and simbolic links consist of a file with the name
of the 'true' file (which could be another link).
They started with a magic number "#@#$SOFTLINK$" or "#@#$HARDLINK$",
and were followed by the filename.
When you made an open, the new routine would open the file, and if it
started with a magic number it would call itself with the new name.

there was a database C:\UNIX\LINKS which said which files had hard links

C:\TC\TURBOC.CFG 20 <- There are 20 hard links to TURBOC.CFG

If you try to erase a symbolic link, you erase it. Final!
If you try to erase a hard link, the program find out the real file
and decreases it's reference count.
If you try to erase a file that is in the database, the program will:
	1 - Erase it, and hell with dangling hard links
	2 - Say: 'There are <n> hard links' and do nothing
	3 - Move the file to one of the hard links, and scan the disk
	    changing every hard-link to that file to the new file

1 - Is just like a symbolic link
2 - Is the easyest
3 - Is the HARD (only?) way.

Why didn't I post?
- I need a few more hundred hours of idle creative time.
- Currently, the only thing it does is CRASH.
- All the comments are in BAD portuguese.



--
Jose Pina Coelho        | BITNET/Internet: jpc@fctunl.rccn.pt
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Home phone: (+351) (1) 640767

- If all men were brothers, would you let one marry your sister ?