Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1999 13:20:23 +0200 (IST)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
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To: Martin Stromberg <Martin DOT Stromberg AT lu DOT erisoft DOT se>
cc: DJGPP-WORKERS <djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com>
Subject: Re: Symlinks...
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On Mon, 22 Nov 1999, Martin Stromberg wrote:

> In this case it's the numerical tail that worries me. What will happen
> when a user tries to follow it in plain DOZE (it was unzipped in
> WINDOZE)?

Sorry, I still don't get the exact scenario.  The short names with 
numeric tails are only a problem if you are talking about a system that 
needs to support DJGPP both with and without Windows running, on the same 
machine.  If this is the case that worries you, then DJGPP already breaks 
on such machines unless you turn numeric tails off, and the FAQ tells 
this.  I don't see any new aspects introduced by the symlinks.

Am I missing something?

> It would be hard to create a symlink to
> a LFN when there aren't any. Or would it?

No, it wouldn't be hard at all.  Creation of a symlink doesn't require 
the target of the symlink to exist, even on Unix.  You can happily say 
"ln -s nosuchfile.in.existence foo" and have the symlink `foo' created 
pointing to the non-existent file.

But I still don't see any problems.  If you create a symlink to a 
non-existent file, you aren't supposed to expect it to work until such 
time as the target of the link comes into existence.

> What will happen if "ln -s
> a_short.nam a_very_long_name.with.multiple_long_extensions" is done in plain
> DOZE?

This will fail because the second file name is an invalid name on DOS.  
So `ln' cannot create it.  It's the same as if you replace "ln -s" with 
"cp".