From: weiqigao AT a DOT crl DOT com (Weiqi Gao)
Subject: Re: rm -R reports "circular reference"
23 Mar 1998 07:15:59 -0800
Message-ID: <3511F6A3.B1B6BA96.cygnus.gnu-win32@a.crl.com>
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To: gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com

Robert Seeger wrote:
> 
> If I recall correctly, it works like this. There is no real inode number.
> Thus, to simulate one, gnu-win32 uses the name of the dir (not full path,
> just that dir). Thus, if you have the following directory structure:
> 
>         /somedir/xxx/yyy/xxx/zzz
> 
> There will be a problem if you are in /somedir and try to do a rm -r. When
> it finds xxx in xxx, it thinks they are the same dir. Thus, you would have to:
> 
>         cd /somedir/xxx/yyy
>         rm -r xxx
>         cd /somedir
>         rm -r xxx
> 
> Hope this helps,
> Robert Seeger
> 
> PS: You could just remove the dir structure from windows. It's what I
> always wind up doing, since it's easier.

The directory structure does have a lot of similarly named files and
directories.  For one thing, each directory has several hidden
sub-directories with names like 
  "009541A4-3B81-101C-92F3-040224009C0F-B52-U2-F16-DC10-747".
Each such directory also contains a hidden file named "desktop.ini"
whose content is also something like the above, which, believe it or
not, rendered the little things "System Folders", and thus immune to
deletion from the explorer.

--
Weiqi Gao
weiqigao AT a DOT crl DOT com
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