From: cgf AT bbc DOT com (Christopher Faylor)
Subject: Re: rm -R reports "circular reference"
20 Mar 1998 14:57:32 -0800
Message-ID: <Eq0vHM.3x9.cygnus.gnu-win32@bbc.com>
References: <350AB233 DOT 87B89052 AT a DOT crl DOT com>
Reply-To: cgf AT bbc DOT com
To: gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com

In article <3 DOT 0 DOT 5 DOT 32 DOT 19980316091605 DOT 009ce100 AT pop DOT ma DOT ultranet DOT com>,
Larry Hall  <lhall AT rfk DOT com> wrote:
>At 10:37 AM 3/14/98 -0600, Weiqi Gao wrote:
>>I encountered an error while trying to "rm -R" a directory tree.  rm
>>reports "circular reference" in the directory structure.
>>
>>I seem to remember seeing such errors being discussed, but couldn't find
>>the details of when such error would occur.
>
>This occurs because of the current scheme for generating inodes.  It is 
>based on the file name and is therefore not completely unique.  If rm
>finds 2 files with the same inode number, you will get complaints.  IT
>DOES NOT MEAN THERE ARE ANY PROBLEMS WITH THE FILE SYSTEM.  In UNIX 
>environments, it does, but not here.  If you see this, you can still 
>delete the remaining files/directories via DOS or Windows commands.  As
>far as I know, this problem has not been completely addressed.

The B19 scheme for generating directory inodes *is* based on the full
path name of a directory.  This should no longer be a problem in B19.

Am I correct in assuming that Weiqi Gao is using B18 or is there still some
kind of bug in B19?
-- 
http://www.bbc.com/	cgf AT bbc DOT com			"Strange how unreal
VMS=>UNIX Solutions	Boston Business Computing	 the real can be."
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