Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!udel!haven!mimsy!mojo!mojo!djm From: djm@eng.umd.edu (David J. MacKenzie) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: ln -f Message-ID: Date: 10 Aug 90 22:54:43 GMT References: <3732@auspex.auspex.com> <1056@undeed.UUCP> <3770@auspex.auspex.com> <1990Aug9.200735.5493@diku.dk> Sender: news@eng.umd.edu (The News System) Organization: Free Software Foundation Lines: 11 In-Reply-To: thorinn@skinfaxe.diku.dk's message of 9 Aug 90 20:07:35 GMT > Why don't the versions of ln that you know of on 4.3 BSD and SunOS 4 > use the rename system call? Because rename doesn't do the same thing as ln. If before you run ln, the file has n links, after you run ln successfully the file will have n + 1 links. If you just rename the file, it will still have n links, but one of them will be different from before. -- David J. MacKenzie