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

From: Walter Landry (wlandry_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-11-26 08:57:35

"Peter Dimov" <pdimov_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> Walter Landry wrote:
> > Beman Dawes <bdawes_at_[hidden]> wrote:
> >> Explicit dereferencing would be awfully cumbersome. People using
> >> O/S's which natively support symbolic links would likely view it as
> >> a giant step backward for them. Plus there would be interoperability
> >> problems - programs using Boost.Filesystem wouldn't work the way
> >> other programs worked.
> >
> > One solution is to have an extra argument which indicates whether to
> > resolve symlinks, and have the default be yes.  Something like
> >
> >   bool exists(const path &ph, bool resolve_symlinks=true)
> >
> > Then remove_all would use exists(ph,false).
> 
> I don't see how this fixes things. remove_all should work on a symlinked
> path. It should not _descend into_ symlinks.
> 
>    bool is_directory( const path &ph, bool symlink_allowed = true )
> 
> is a solution, but an explicit "is_symbolic_link" seems better.

Right.  Not thinking straight.  Having an is_symbolic_link() function
is certainly still required.  However, I think that my proposed syntax
would resolve the problem of whether a particular function should
resolve symlinks or not.

> I'd also consider something along the lines of
> 
>     recursive_directory_iterator it(ph, depth_first_traversal | return_files
> | return_directories | follow_symlinks | detect_cycles), end;
> 
>     std::for_each(it, end, fs::remove);

How about just extending directory_iterator?

Regards,
Walter Landry
wlandry_at_[hidden]