X-Recipient: archive-cygwin AT delorie DOT com
X-SWARE-Spam-Status: No, hits=-2.7 required=5.0 	tests=AWL,BAYES_00,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_LOW
X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org
Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v753.1)
In-Reply-To: <20100304094847.GZ17293@calimero.vinschen.de>
References: <CC11356C-47B3-4FD0-9A58-89A9691A52D8 AT von-campe DOT com> <20100304094847 DOT GZ17293 AT calimero DOT vinschen DOT de>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
Message-Id: <D85D47A6-32FD-4FFE-A99C-D7FD055E8F67@von-campe.com>
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
From: Alfred von Campe <alfred AT von-campe DOT com>
Subject: Re: Strange symlink behaviour
Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2010 06:41:53 -0500
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
X-IsSubscribed: yes
Mailing-List: contact cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com; run by ezmlm
Precedence: bulk
List-Id: <cygwin.cygwin.com>
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:cygwin-unsubscribe-archive-cygwin=delorie DOT com AT cygwin DOT com>
List-Subscribe: <mailto:cygwin-subscribe AT cygwin DOT com>
List-Archive: <http://sourceware.org/ml/cygwin/>
List-Post: <mailto:cygwin AT cygwin DOT com>
List-Help: <mailto:cygwin-help AT cygwin DOT com>, <http://sourceware.org/ml/#faqs>
Sender: cygwin-owner AT cygwin DOT com
Mail-Followup-To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Delivered-To: mailing list cygwin AT cygwin DOT com

> Real symlinks on a remote CIFS system are not recognized by Cygwin or
> Windows either.  Rather, they are converted to real files by the
> underlying CIFS server so that "dumb" Windows clients don't get
> confused.

Ah, that makes sense and explains some behavior I was seeing.

> Symlinks created with and for Cygwin are not real symlinks (with an
> exception).  They are files with special properties so that they are
> recognized as symlinks by Cygwin.

Does that also apply to a symlink extracted from a tar file created  
on Linux?

> Bottom line is, if you create symlinks via Cygwin, they will only be
> recognized by Cygwin clients.  If you want symlinks which work on all
> systems (NFS->Linux, CIFS->Windows, CIFS->Cygwin), you have to create
> the symlinks using a Linux client.

That's what I was afraid of.  My real issue is that this all works  
when I extract the tar ball into an empty directory, but it doesn't  
when the symlink already exists and a short cut is created instead.   
If the "rm //path/to/share/*" would simply delete the symlink I would  
not be having this problem.  Wait, a thought just occurred to me.   
What if I delete the symlink first instead of deleting "*".  I'll try  
this when I get to work today and report back with the results.

Vielen Dank,
Alfred


--
Problem reports:       http://cygwin.com/problems.html
FAQ:                   http://cygwin.com/faq/
Documentation:         http://cygwin.com/docs.html
Unsubscribe info:      http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple