Chris Elvidge wrote: > Paul Eggert wrote: > > Ulf Zibis wrote: > > > I think, for beginners it would be less confusing, if the most > > > simple form would be the first. > > > > Unfortunately the simple form "ln TARGET" is quite rarely used, so > > putting it first is likely to confuse beginners even more than what we > > have already. Come to think of it, perhaps we should put the simple form > > last instead of 2nd.
+1 for putting it last. > I use 'ln -s "source"' quite a lot for linking into e.g. /usr/local/bin from > my own $HOME/bin. It defaults to "." as the target in that case. I never liked that it was allowed to be optional as I think it makes things much more confusing than the two characters saved. > The real problem could be with the terminology. > 'ln [options] TARGET [LINK_NAME]'; the TARGET is really the source, which > obviously must exist. A TARGET is really something you aim at. Mostly agree. With symbolic links the symlink contains a string. The string could be pretty much anything. By convention it contains the path to another file. (Or to another special file. Everything is a file.) But it is also used to contain a small bit of information in other cases. Such as for lockfiles and other uses. Therefore source isn't quite right. But maybe it is good enough. Because CONTENTS seems less good even if perhaps more accurate. > Perhaps it should be changed to 'ln [options] source [link]' mv calls it SOURCE and DEST. cp calls it SOURCE and DEST. Perhaps ln should also call it SOURCE and DEST too for consistency? cp [OPTION]... [-T] SOURCE DEST mv [OPTION]... [-T] SOURCE DEST ln [OPTION]... [-T] SOURCE DEST I like the consistency of that. Although I don't like that -T is not apparently an OPTION. It's not? Why not? Shouldn't that synopsis form simply be these? cp [OPTION]... SOURCE DEST mv [OPTION]... SOURCE DEST ln [OPTION]... SOURCE DEST Bob