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

From: Jeremy Maitin-Shepard (jbms_at_[hidden])
Date: 2003-12-01 14:09:21

Beman Dawes <bdawes_at_[hidden]> writes:

> At 04:59 PM 11/29/2003, Walter Landry wrote:
>> The default should be to resolve symlinks, much like POSIX stat.
>> Since it is mostly POSIX programmers who are going to have to deal
>> with symlinks, it is best not to make defaults gratuitously different.

> Yes, I'm very much in agreement with that. Any changes to interfaces need to
> default to usual resolve symlinks behavior.

But currently, rename and remove _don't_ follow symbolic links, while
copy_file currently does.  It is possible that the desired behavior for
copy_file is in fact to not resolve symbolic links.  Nonetheless, the
point is that the current library (and Walter's proposed defaults) are
inconsistent, and furthermore there is no convenient way to specify by
arguments the symbolic link resolve behavior for two-path functions.

-- 
Jeremy Maitin-Shepard