Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!munnari!mwp
From: mwp@munnari.oz (Michael W. Paddon)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Symbolic Links
Message-ID: <1813@munnari.oz>
Date: Mon, 7-Sep-87 01:16:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: munnari.1813
Posted: Mon Sep  7 01:16:52 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 8-Sep-87 02:56:29 EDT
References: <2924@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com>
Organization: Comp Sci, Melbourne Uni, Australia
Lines: 32

in article <2924@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com>, ekrell@hector..UUCP (Eduardo Krell) says:
> 
> In article <1809@munnari.oz> mwp@munnari.UUCP writes:
> 
>>The kernel only knows, in this case, one possible path -- the
>>one you used to get there. Given this problem, how would you know if
>>you were removing the real directory or just a symbolic link?
> 
> How about lstat() ?
>     

This hardly makes things simpler for the novice user as you claim.
In fact explaining why
		cd somepath/dir		[assume an empty directory]
		cd ..
		rmdir dir
may work sometimes but not others may be much harder
than explaining to people the idea of a "jump" into another place in
the tree. An operation like this will take more sophistication under
your proposed scheme for little real benefit.

It may be more worthwhile to look at a file system structure that is
more like a general graph than hacking up a tree to have some graph
attributes. But, as has been said before, if you do that it probably
isn't UNIX anymore.

						mwp
						===
===========================
UUCP:	{seismo,mcvax,ukc,ubc-vision}!munnari!mwp
ARPA:	mwp%munnari.oz@seismo.css.gov
CSNET:	mwp%munnari.oz@australia