On Wed, 7 Jul 1999, Jean-Louis Debert wrote:
> Hello all.
> Would somebody care to comment on the following:
>
> [root@jld src]# ls -l
> total 12720
> drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 1024 Jun 27 14:04 RPM
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 Jul 4 11:59 linux ->
> linux-2.2.9
> drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Jul 4 11:53 linux-2.2.10
> drwxr-xr-x 17 root root 1024 Jul 4 11:46 linux-2.2.9
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 12969457 Jul 4 11:48
> linux-2.2.9-Mandrake-tar.gz
> [root@jld src]# ln -sf linux-2.2.10 linux
> [root@jld src]# ls -l
> total 12720
> drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 1024 Jun 27 14:04 RPM
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 Jul 4 11:59 linux ->
> linux-2.2.9
> drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Jul 4 11:53 linux-2.2.10
> drwxr-xr-x 17 root root 1024 Jul 4 12:02 linux-2.2.9
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 12969457 Jul 4 11:48
> linux-2.2.9-Mandrake-tar.gz
> [root@jld src]# rm linux
> rm: d�truire `linux'? y
> [root@jld src]# ln -sf linux-2.2.10 linux
> [root@jld src]# ls -l
> total 12720
> drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 1024 Jun 27 14:04 RPM
> lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 Jul 4 12:03 linux ->
> linux-2.2.10
> drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 1024 Jul 4 11:53 linux-2.2.10
> drwxr-xr-x 17 root root 1024 Jul 4 12:02 linux-2.2.9
> -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 12969457 Jul 4 11:48
> linux-2.2.9-Mandrake-tar.gz
>
>
> Please note that the first ln command seems to have been ignored (linux
> still
> points linux-2.2.9, although 1) I had the -f modifier, and 2) I was root
> (since
> I was working in the kernel source tree) so I should have permissions.
It went into linux-2.2.9/ do it again and check there you will see a
linux/linux broken symlink, Because of the symlink being a directory
it thinks you want a symlink in the directory
> This is on a newly installed Mandrake 6.0 on a clean partition.
> I looked at the man page for ln and there it says that the -f modifier
> "will remove existing targets" whatever that means. It also says that
> this option is equivalent to --force and here the name seems
> self-explanatory.
> This is precisely in _this_ sense that I wanted to use the option, i.e.
> make the link point to whatever I order it to, whether or not it was
> already pointing somewhere else ...
>
> I _think_ that this is the first time that I catch this kind of
> behaviour,
> i.e. in previous linux distributions I'm pretty sure that it _did_
> behave
> as I would like it to.
Nope is same
> So what has changed ??? the ln binary ??? I don't believe it, but even
> so,
> _why_ ? otherwise it has to be either the kernel ext2 code (which at the
> time
> was the one from Mandrake) or possibly the glibc 2.1 ???
This is the way it is supposed to work on directories, try it with a file
and it will work as you are expecting.
>
> Would anybody care to comment ?
>
> Thanks anyway.
>
> --
> Jean-Louis Debert [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 74 Annemasse France
> old Linux fan
>
