Date: Tue, 5 May 1998 13:12:08 +0300 (IDT)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
To: Demmer AT LStM DOT Ruhr-Uni-Bochum DOT De
cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: fixpath problem in Novell drives.
In-Reply-To: <961B9986273@brain1.lstm.ruhr-uni-bochum.de>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.980505130559.28187A-100000@is>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
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On Tue, 5 May 1998, Tom Demmer wrote:

> MAP ROOT L:=i:\demmer
> MAP ROOT K:=i:\demmer\tmp
> K:
> cp turboc.cfg l:/tmp
> 
> yield:
> No warning,
> turboc.cfg truncated to length zero.

Is that DOS, Windows 3.X, Windows 9X?  Which one?

> cp --v
>   cp - GNU Fileutils-3.13
> 
> Hmm, is this still up to date?

No, please try the latest upload of Fileutils 3.16.  It is possible that 
the version of `stat' used to build 3.13 had subtle bugs on networked 
drives.

> > As far as I know, on DOS and Windows 3.X, the above would correctly tell 
> > you that these files are the same, because `_truename' resolves both names 
> > to the same UNC, and thus both files get the same inode and the same 
> > st_dev number.  The same situation exists with SUBST and JOIN, and `stat' 
> > does handles those correctly.
> 
> I can confirm this. Both say
> \\BRAIN1\USR\HOME\DEMMER\TMP\TURBOC.CFG

If `_truename' returns correct result, `stat' should have returned the 
same st_dev and the same st_ino.  Please try the latest `stat' (or the 
latest cp.exe, whichever is easier for you) and tell me what did you see.

> > First, you can avoid mapping different drive letters to the same disk on 
> > the same machine.  (Remember that "don't do that" joke?)
> 
> I do know what I am doing (read: I can sometimes figure out what went 
> wrong when I didn't know what I was doing), but some of the users 
> here cannot.

Sorry, I didn't mean *that* joke.  I meant the one where the patient 
tells the doctor it hurts when he does ``like this'', and the doctor 
answers ``Then don't do that.''

> > And second, you could yell at Microsoft gods to return the UNC like we 
> > all expect.
> > 
> I admire your faith. Did that _ever_ help? ;-)

I have never tried ;-).  So much for my faith.