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From:	"Mark R." <mcr2z AT cs DOT virginia DOT edu>
To:	"'Gary R. Van Sickle'" <g DOT r DOT vansickle AT worldnet DOT att DOT net>,
	<cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
Subject:	RE: Why do symlinks need to be system files
Date:	Wed, 2 Jul 2003 08:42:41 -0400
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In-Reply-To:	<NCBBIHCHBLCMLBLOBONKKENMEEAA.g.r.vansickle@worldnet.att.net>

That does make sense. I've played around with using ln -s to create my own
symlinks. The odd thing is that these are all being created as shortcuts vs
this other method. Now that I'm in the "I'm just curious" mode - Does anyone
know why  the two different methods are used?

-Mark
 

-----Original Message-----
From: cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com [mailto:cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com] On Behalf Of
Gary R. Van Sickle
Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2003 1:37 AM
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: RE: Why do symlinks need to be system files

> Mark R. wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I've been busy attempting to use WinInstaller LE to create an MSI 
> > package of cygwin so we can automatically deploy a customized build 
> > for our department. This works for the most part, however when I 
> > deploy this to a windows XP machine, all of the symlinks are broken. 
> > Ex/ vi doesn't work, however vim does.
> >
> > When I tracked down the problem, it appears that symlinks require 
> > the "system file" attribute to be set. Does anyone know why this is?
>
> Because that's part of how Cygwin recognizes them as symlinks.

To expand on that a bit, it's so Cygwin doesn't have to open and parse the
actual contents of every file it sees on a path to see if it's a symlink; it
only has to check those marked as system.  Since it's rare to find many
files marked system normally, this results in mega-savings speedwise.

Now if Microsoft would only get hip to this whole symlink thing....

--
Gary R. Van Sickle
Brewer.  Patriot.


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