I don't understand why you guys create a symbolic link to the configure.log in the base directory. This has always confused me, and I'm pretty sure I've accidentally sent a symbolic link or two from OS X at one point or another. I think you should gzip and cp the configure.log over as part of a successful install, and leave it sitting in the main directory otherwise. Advanced users may want to have the ability to have configure.log generated elsewhere (and you could make this a configure argument if you really felt like it), but the symbolic links are both unexpected and confusing to beginners.
On Wed, Oct 9, 2013 at 1:05 AM, Chetan Jhurani <[email protected]> wrote: > mklink on NTFS does it the right way - no .lnk business > or cygwin specific file format. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_symbolic_link > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] >> On Behalf Of Satish Balay >> Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2013 8:53 PM >> To: Barry Smith >> Cc: For users of the development version of PETSc >> Subject: Re: [petsc-dev] damn symlinks on windows >> >> On Tue, 8 Oct 2013, Barry Smith wrote: >> >> > >> > Is there any solution to the problem of windows users always mailing >> > symlinks instead of actual >> files? Is it a cygwin problem? >> >> http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using-effectively.html#using-shortcuts >> >> I guess one can create MS-links - but 'less configure.log.lnk' is >> useless on it . And I don't know if any of these e-mailers would >> resolve MS-link and attach the actual file - or just attach the dummy >> link file.. >> >> Alterantives: >> >> - do not create links on windows. [but now our instructions are either >> inconsistant or too >> complicated] >> >> - do not use links anywhere :( >> >> Satish >
