Date: Thu, 19 Dec 2002 08:14:52 +0200 (IST)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
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To: Richard Dawe <rich AT phekda DOT freeserve DOT co DOT uk>
cc: DJGPP workers <djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com>
Subject: Re: Problems with __solve_symlinks
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On Wed, 18 Dec 2002, Richard Dawe wrote:

> __solve_symlinks on "c:/tmp/part-symlink/rem_sl" will return "a:/loc_reg".
> __solve_symlinks on "c://tmp/part-symlink/rem_sl" will return the same string.
> 
> __solve_symlinks calls findfirst to look for the existance of a symlink file.
> findfirst barfs on the double-slash and __solve_symlinks does not find the
> symlink file.

Sorry, I don't understand: `findfirst' calls `_put_path' to pass the file 
name to any DOS function via the transfer buffer, right?  And `_put_path' 
collapses multiple slashes, right?  So why isn't this being fixed before 
DOS sees the two slashes?  What am I missing?

> __solve_symlinks also fails for relative paths such as
> c:../../../../tmp/part-symlink/rem_sl.

Why is that?  Could you please analyze why these cases fail and post the 
description of what happens?

> Hmmm, this is starting to sound a bit like
> _fixpath. But it feels like _fixpath is too heavy for this purpose. However, I
> think we would want the other benefits of _fixpath - those from _put_path,
> like expanding environment variables. Thoughts?

The last port of Fileutils I worked on did indeed call _fixpath in 
several places, to solve similar problems.  Perhaps it should call 
_fixpath in a few more places now?

I don't think we should use _fixpath in low-level library functions, but 
perhaps I will change my mind when I understand the nature of the 
failures better.