Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!virtech!cpcahil
From: cpcahil@virtech.uucp (Conor P. Cahill)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Levels of soft links in BSD4.3
Message-ID: <1990Sep04.122857.20530@virtech.uucp>
Date: 4 Sep 90 12:28:57 GMT
References: <1990Sep4.045427.2307@ecn.purdue.edu>
Reply-To: cpcahil@virtech.UUCP (Conor P. Cahill)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Virtual Technologies Inc., Sterling VA
Lines: 23

In article <1990Sep4.045427.2307@ecn.purdue.edu> irick@ecn.purdue.edu (GarBear Irick) writes:
>
>Just curious....  Does anyone know how many levels of soft links I can use
>in 4.3BSD?  Something like

A quick RTFM of the 4.3BSD Programmers manual reference guide states the 
following (on the intro(2) manual page):

	62 ELOOP too many levels of symbolic links
		A path name lookup involved more than 8 symbolic links

This code is in place to protect the system from the case you attempted to
create:

>lns -s ONE TWO
>lns -s TWO ONE
>cat ONE

which otherwise would have gone on forever.
-- 
Conor P. Cahill            (703)430-9247        Virtual Technologies, Inc.,
uunet!virtech!cpcahil                           46030 Manekin Plaza, Suite 160
                                                Sterling, VA 22170