Message-ID: <39A272B2.D1810EB5@softhome.net>
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2000 14:31:46 +0200
From: Laurynas Biveinis <lauras AT softhome DOT net>
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To: DJGPP Workers <djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com>
Subject: Patch to features.txi about symlink
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Reply-To: djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com

I've written few words here about symlink support.

Any comments?

Laurynas

Index: features.txi
===================================================================
RCS file: /cvs/djgpp/djgpp/src/docs/kb/features.txi,v
retrieving revision 1.2
diff -u -r1.2 features.txi
--- features.txi	1999/05/12 10:36:51	1.2
+++ features.txi	2000/08/22 12:27:02
@@ -273,10 +273,16 @@
 @cindex Symlinks, emulation
 DOS doesn't support hard and symbolic links.  However, @sc{djgpp}
 emulates them to some extent.  The @code{link} library function
-simulates hard links by copying.  The @code{symlink} library function
-simulates a symbolic link for executable programs only, by creating a
-2KB stub which is set up to run the COFF image from the target of the
-link.  Thus, @samp{ln -s grep fgrep} does what you'd expect.
+simulates hard links by copying.  Symbolic links are fully emulated by most 
+file handling functions in the library.  Also, symlink support API you would 
+expect find only on UNIX (such as @code{readlink}) is present. Function 
+@code{symlink} creates files with special size and format which are 
+transparently to user recognized by other library functions.  Because DOS 
+itself and most DOS applications weren't designed with symlinks in mind, there
+is a subset of file handling API which intentionally does not support symlinks.
+This includes functions with @code{_dos_} prefix, as well as other functions
+with DOS origin, such as @code{findfirst}.
+
 
 @item Emacs compatibility.