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https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HADOOP-4044?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=12630246#action_12630246
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dhruba borthakur commented on HADOOP-4044:
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@Doug: Your example scenario is correct. It could be a major loss in
functionality. But maybe we can put in the additional complexity and reap the
additional benefits at a later date. I am assuming that the need for the
additional functionality can wait for some time.
@Raghu: I agree that synlinks have many general purpose use-cases. But there
are also file system systems (very similar to Hadoop :-))that do not support
symlinks/hardlinks at all.
For symlinks supported by various OS: the OS calls the file system with a
??lookup?? call for every path component. The filesystem resolves only one
piece of the path component at a time. In HDFS, the FileSystem is passed in the
entire path. Thus, the technique to resolve partial paths becomes messy and
does not have any precedence. That's why I am proposing that we delay this part
of the functionality.
Comments/feedback welcome.
> Create symbolic links in HDFS
> -----------------------------
>
> Key: HADOOP-4044
> URL: https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/HADOOP-4044
> Project: Hadoop Core
> Issue Type: New Feature
> Components: dfs
> Reporter: dhruba borthakur
> Assignee: dhruba borthakur
> Attachments: symLink1.patch, symLink1.patch
>
>
> HDFS should support symbolic links. A symbolic link is a special type of file
> that contains a reference to another file or directory in the form of an
> absolute or relative path and that affects pathname resolution. Programs
> which read or write to files named by a symbolic link will behave as if
> operating directly on the target file. However, archiving utilities can
> handle symbolic links specially and manipulate them directly.
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