Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!sun-barr!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ncar!ames!vsi1!altos!megadon!clp From: jmm@eci386.UUCP (John Macdonald) Newsgroups: comp.unix Subject: Re: Do you REALLY need hard links? Keywords: links hard symbolic Message-ID: <2148@megadon.UUCP> Date: 10 Oct 90 03:18:25 GMT References: <3718@zorba.Tynan.COM> Sender: clp@megadon.UUCP Reply-To: jmm@eci386.UUCP (John Macdonald) Organization: Elegant Communications Inc. Lines: 19 Approved: clp@megadon.UUCP In article <3718@zorba.Tynan.COM> jrg@Apple.COM (John R. Galloway Jr.) writes: |I am interested to know what uses people routinely have for hard links that |could not be equally well served by symbolic links. In a system administration reporting package we sell, we regularily use hard links to link todays report to "Rpt." where is the day of the week. Thus we end up with rpt.last being the most recent report generated, and Rpt.Wed being the report most recently generated on a Wednesday. This gives an automatic cyclic backup scheme. The extension is generated by using date, and is controlled by an locally configurable environment variable which allows the numerical day of the month to be used instead to provide a 28 to 31 day cycle rather than a seven day cycle. It would be possible to do the same with a loop that moved all historical items to the next older name, however, it is a lot easier to figure out which is the backup from last Saturday (is it rpt---- or rpt-----?) using our method. -- Algol 60 was an improvment on most | John Macdonald of its successors - C.A.R. Hoare | jmm@eci386