Message-ID: <44D27B36.1090400@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2006 18:39:50 -0400
From: Adam Wolbach <awolbach AT andrew DOT cmu DOT edu>
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CC: jaharkes AT cs DOT cmu DOT edu, satya AT cmu DOT edu, phil AT cs DOT wwu DOT edu
Subject: cygwin, Coda and symbolic links
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Hello cygwin mailing list,

I'm a new subscriber looking to get some information relevant to the 
Coda File System development at Carnegie Mellon University, which uses 
cygwin as a platform to run on Windows 2000/WinXP. We rely heavily on 
symbolic links for a number of different features, most significantly 
representing conflicts within the file system. Conflicts are 
inconsistent file system objects which are represented as "dangling" or 
"broken" symlinks pointing to the file identifier of the inconsistent 
object, e.g., if "foo" fell into conflict:

[host]# ls -l foo
lr--r--r-- 1 root nfsnobody [date/time] foo -> 
@xxxxxxxx DOT yyyyyyyy DOT zzzzzzzz AT realmname

Coda's current symlink support in cygwin is nonexistent, but we are 
looking to support symlinks in the same manner cygwin appears to -- as 
special Windows shortcuts that cygwin can interpret as symlinks. 
Allowing cygwin to see our conflicts as broken symlinks would be a big 
win for our repair mechanisms. We looked at the internals of a Windows 
.lnk shortcut file and (of course) part appears binary; we assume 
somewhere along the line that the cygwin developers reverse-engineered 
the contents of these files to hijack them for their own purposes.

First question, I've hunted for this information around the website, in 
the past mailing-list archives and the web, and it doesn't appear 
readily available. Is there anyone on the list who knows more about the 
internals of Windows shortcuts and could clue the Coda developers in? 
Also, how these shortcuts should be crafted to appear as symlinks to 
cygwin? We already know that they must be read-only files from Windows' 
perspective, and cygwin appears to use the "comment" field under 
Properties for its own addressing.

Secondly, is there a more appropriate mailing list for this question? 
(maybe the developers' list?)

Any information is appreciated, as well as a reply-all on any replies. 
Thanks!


Adam Wolbach

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