Message-ID: <5082FA2E.5010208@redhat.com>
Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2012 13:23:26 -0600
From: Eric Blake <eblake AT redhat DOT com>
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To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: Ln can't hard link into named directory
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On 10/20/2012 12:22 PM, Lawrence Mayer wrote:
> Ln can't hard link into named directory.
>=20
> e.g.
>=20
> Ln ... TARGET... DIRECTORY (3rd form)
>=20
> and
>=20
> ln ... -t DIRECTORY TARGET...  (4th form)
>=20
> both fail when DIRECTORY is named (but appear to work when DIRECTORY =3D =
'.' (current directory))
>=20
> returning error message
>=20
> 'ln: Cannot create a file when that file already exists.' when TARGET is =
named file
>=20
> or
>=20
> 'ln: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.' =
when TARGET is '*' (wildcard).

Please show us the actual command line you typed, rather than a
description of it; even better, starting from an empty directory, show
us a sequence of mkdir and touch commands that will get us into the same
state to reproduce the message you are complaining about.  However, I
suspect that this is not a bug in ln, but a misunderstanding on your
part.  Cygwin, like Linux, prohibits the creation of hard links to a
directory, and POSIX permits this restriction.  Just because Solaris
chose to allow hard links to a directory does not make it a good idea.

--=20
Eric Blake   eblake AT redhat DOT com    +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org


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