Hi! I've always wondered why sometimes "ln -[s]f" would work and sometimes it would not. Now I found out: "ln -f" only works for symbolic or hard links to files, but not for symbolic links to directories.
Example: $ mkdir /tmp/links $ cd /tmp/links $ touch file-1 file-2 $ mkdir dir-1 dir-2 $ ll total 16 drwxr-xr-x 2 mjk users 4096 Nov 28 13:24 dir-1 drwxr-xr-x 2 mjk users 4096 Nov 28 13:24 dir-2 -rw-r--r-- 1 mjk users 0 Nov 28 13:24 file-1 -rw-r--r-- 1 mjk users 0 Nov 28 13:24 file-2 $ $ # Let's see if it works for files: $ $ ln -s file-1 file $ $ ls -l file* total 16 lrwxrwxrwx 1 mjk users 6 Nov 28 13:25 file -> file-1 -rw-r--r-- 1 mjk users 0 Nov 28 13:24 file-1 -rw-r--r-- 1 mjk users 0 Nov 28 13:24 file-2 $ $ ln -sf file-2 file $ $ ls -l file* lrwxrwxrwx 1 mjk users 6 Nov 28 13:27 file -> file-2 -rw-r--r-- 1 mjk users 0 Nov 28 13:24 file-1 -rw-r--r-- 1 mjk users 0 Nov 28 13:24 file-2 $ $ # Hooray, it worked! $ # Now let's see if it works for directories as well: $ $ ln -s dir-1 dir $ $ ls -ld dir* lrwxrwxrwx 1 mjk users 5 Nov 28 13:28 dir -> dir-1 drwxr-xr-x 2 mjk users 4096 Nov 28 13:24 dir-1 drwxr-xr-x 2 mjk users 4096 Nov 28 13:24 dir-2 $ $ ln -sf dir-2 dir $ $ ls -ld dir* lrwxrwxrwx 1 mjk users 5 Nov 28 13:28 dir -> dir-1 drwxr-xr-x 2 mjk users 4096 Nov 28 13:28 dir-1 drwxr-xr-x 2 mjk users 4096 Nov 28 13:24 dir-2 $ $ # No, doesn't work :-( $ Please fix :-) And a question: After all these years, am I the first to report this bug? Did no-one ever notice? Best regards Marc-Jano _______________________________________________ Bug-fileutils mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-fileutils
