Re: [boost] Filesystem: remove_all should not follow symlinks

From: Peter Dimov (pdimov_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-11-21 17:53:33

Beman Dawes wrote:
>
> Good questions. For both reference-counted and symbolic links, and for
> every operation, we need to know if the operation has shallow or deep
> semantics.

You keep talking about "reference-counted and symbolic links" but these two
do not belong in the same sentence, as has already been pointed out.

A "link" is Unix terminology for a directory entry. A directory entry points
to an i-node which has a reference count. This is why the delete operation
is called "unlink", it removes the directory entry, but not necessarily the
file. When you have two directory entries for the same file, both are equal.
It doesn't matter which one came first. It doesn't make sense to talk about
shallow or deep semantics here.

A symbolic link is a special kind of directory entry that points to another
directory entry.