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RE: [ANNOUNCEMENT]: Important change to symbolic link functionali ty


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Corinna Vinschen [mailto:cygwin@cygwin.com]
> Sent: Thursday, February 22, 2001 6:44 PM
> To: cygwin
> Subject: Re: [ANNOUNCEMENT]: Important change to symbolic link
> functionali ty
> 
> 
> On Thu, Feb 22, 2001 at 05:19:53PM +0100, Bernard Dautrevaux wrote:
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Corinna Vinschen [mailto:cygwin@cygwin.com]
> > > The problem is that a shortcut has to contain a DOS path, 
> obviously.
> > > The new strategy is as follows:
> > > 
> > > - If the target path is an absolute path save the 
> absolute DOS path.
> > > 
> > > - If the target doesn't exist save a relative DOS path 
> (who cares?).
> > > 
> > > - If the target path is accessible as relative DOS path save 
> > > that relative
> > >   DOS path.
> > > 
> > > - If both of above fails save the absolute path.
> > 
> > I don't really understand the last one; why if the target 
> exist but is not
> > accessible do you want to save it's absolute path rather 
> than the relative
> > one? AFAIRC the usual *NIX semantics is "save the target 
> path as given, that
> > is absolute if given absolute, relative otherwise).
> 
> The shortcut contains a DOS path and a POSIX path. The POSIX path is
> used by Cygwin or U/WIN. The DOS path is used by native Windows tools,
> obviously.
> 
> My above description is ONLY related to the DOS path. The patch tries
> to resolve the path as good as possible so that a native Windows tool
> can work with the shortcut either. The last case of the above list is
> handling the case that the relative path has only a meaning to Cygwin
> but is invalid as a _relative_ DOS path. This could be for example
> when mount points are spanned over in the relative POSIX path.
> 
> The POSIX path in the shortcut which is used by Cygwin is 
> saved EXACTLY
> as it's given. So there is no change in behaviour as far as Cygwin is
> concerned!!! OTOH the symlinks now have a meaning for DOS 
> tools as well.
> 
> I can't see a disadvantage here.
> 
> Hope that clears things up,
> Corinna
> 

Oh... I should've been tired yesterday as I didn't realize the created .lnk
file will contain both a DOS and a *NIX path... :-0

Of course now I understand and agree :-)

Thanks for the fact that now we can follow these using Win native tools, at
least to the extent we do not move things around under windows and rearrange
mount points for cygwin ;-| 

However I don't see any way out of this unfortunately, as in this case the
DOS and CYGWIN paths get out of sync: we've probably created a new area of
problems and complains (by newbies or oldies)...

Something that's then probably needed is a cygwin utility to "restore"
symlinks if the two paths disagree; in this case we probably should blindly
translate the cygwin path in the correct DOS path (except perhaps if the
cygwin path is no more valid but the DOS one is?).

Regards,

	Bernard

--------------------------------------------
Bernard Dautrevaux
Microprocess Ingenierie
97 bis, rue de Colombes
92400 COURBEVOIE
FRANCE
Tel:	+33 (0) 1 47 68 80 80
Fax:	+33 (0) 1 47 88 97 85
e-mail:	dautrevaux@microprocess.com
		b.dautrevaux@usa.net
-------------------------------------------- 

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