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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!husc6!cca!mirror!ima!haddock!karl
From: karl@haddock.UUCP (Karl Heuer)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: symbolic links are a botch
Message-ID: <634@haddock.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 26-Jun-87 16:44:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: haddock.634
Posted: Fri Jun 26 16:44:50 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Jun-87 11:07:50 EDT
References: <7955@brl-adm.ARPA> <2249@bunker.UUCP>
Reply-To: karl@haddock.ISC.COM.UUCP (Karl Heuer)
Organization: Interactive Systems, Boston
Lines: 11
Summary: ELOOP check is poorly designed

In article <2249@bunker.UUCP> zink@bunker.UUCP (David Zink) writes:
>What's wrong about more than eight symbolic links?  ... I still don't
>understand why after [ a <- b <- ... <- h <- i ], "echo >i" should fail?

It shouldn't, of course.  And unless I'm missing something, it needn't.

There exists a loop detection algorithm which uses O(log(N)) space and O(N)
time (it doesn't detect the loop immediately, but it does stop before the
third visit of any node).  Why isn't this used?

Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint