Hello,
Symlink is one of ugly things in unix.
For example, my mac shows:
-bash$ ls -l /usr/bin/vi
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 3 11 18 2014 /usr/bin/vi -> vim
-bash$
This expression is something like a thorn.
Irregular fields makes things difficult.
The entity of /usr/bin/vi is /usr/bin/vim, which is
-bash$ ls -l /usr/bin/vim
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 1530240 6 24 2016 /usr/bin/vim
-bash$
I guess Russ hated the irregularity.
In plan9port we have
-bash$ 9 ls -l /usr/bin/vi
-Lrwxr-xr-x M 0 root wheel 3 Jun 24 2016 /usr/bin/vi
-bash$
but I wander why this isn't
-bash$ 9 ls -l /usr/bin/vi
-Lrwxr-xr-x M 0 root wheel 1530240 Jun 24 2016 /usr/bin/vi
-bash$
This comes from $P9P/src/lib9/_p9dir.c
if(S_ISLNK(lst->st_mode)){ /* yes, lst not st */
d->mode |= DMSYMLINK;
d->length = lst->st_size; <----- why Russ
put this code?
}
Any merit?
Kenji Arisawa
