On Mon, Nov 26, 2001 at 09:39:33AM -0800, Mike Egglestone wrote: > .....Apr 1 2001 mail -> ../mail > > My question: > I'm guessing that the file "mail" is linked to here: /var/mail > but the above output doesn't tell me that.
Yes it does. It tells you that, if you're in /var/spool, 'mail' and '../mail' both refer to the same file or directory. > If I wanted to find out where "mail" pointed to, how would I find out? cd /var/spool/../mail (or, since .. moves you up a level, you can think of it as cancelling the immediately preceding directory, which produces the equivalent path '/var/mail') > Its only telling me part of the link. No, it's telling you the whole link. That particular link just happens to be a link to a relative path (../mail) instead of to an absolute path (/var/mail). > Same goes for the files in here: > /etc/rc2.d/ > I know they all point to /etc/init.d/* > but the output from ls -l doesn't exactly tell me that. > For someone new, how could they find out? There again, it is telling you, just not in a terribly straightforward fashion. Just remember that /etc/rc2.d/../init.d/ is the same as /etc/init.d/ -- When we reduce our own liberties to stop terrorism, the terrorists have already won. - reverius Innocence is no protection when governments go bad. - Tom Swiss
