Xref: utzoo comp.unix.wizards:22991 alt.security:1140
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,alt.security
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Hard links to directories: why not?
Message-ID: <1990Jul22.035130.12559@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <5222@milton.u.washington.edu> <10527@odin.corp.sgi.com> <1990Jul19.121048.16332@cbnews.att.com> <18461@rpp386.cactus.org>
Date: Sun, 22 Jul 90 03:51:30 GMT

In article <18461@rpp386.cactus.org> jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F. Haugh II) writes:
>Aren't there better things to worry about?  My favorite is why
>doesn't the ln command require the use of a -f flag to blast a
>target file?

On sane Unix systems, ln fails if the target file exists already.  On
AT&T System V UNIX(R) Operating Systems, it silently goes ahead.  Some
faceless imbecile in the hordes of System V UNIX(R) Operating System
developers thought it would be cute if ln, mv, and cp all worked the
same way.
-- 
NFS:  all the nice semantics of MSDOS, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
and its performance and security too.  |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry