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Re: Symlink implementation: support of shell links???


Mark Southern wrote:
Correct me if i am wrong with any of this...

Windows 98 thru XP ( with the .NET framework installed ) support shell
links. These are different from shortcuts. A shell link is a folder ( with a
couple of files inside it ) that points to another folder (ie a symlink).
The benefit of this approach is that in shell link aware applications (such
as windows explorer etc.) these show up as directories rather than shortcut
(.lnk) files and enable browsing. As far as i can see, cmd.exe does not
support shell links.

For a better explaination of this see < http://www.pearlmagik.com/winbolic/

. This is a great tool for creating shell links.




My question for discussion is: should cygwin support shell links as
directory symlinks or as mount points??

It's interesting to see how many runs MS takes at implementing this basic functionality and how many times they don't get it right. OK, personal opinion but just look at all the "ifs" and "buts" at the site mentioned above (which does a good review of pros and cons, requirements, etc) and you have to ask yourself, do we need yet another incomplete implementation of links in Windows? Apparently, getting it right is *real* difficult. The relevance of this mini-rant to the question at hand is that I'm not sure that it makes sense to support shell links at all, unless Windows does in it's tools (in which case it may force our hand). The path logic in Cygwin is already complex and adding support for a new link scheme (the third), which doesn't replace the either of the other two, would seem to me to result in even more complex code, leading to more bugs. So I don't see that there is a benefit to supporting these as symbolic links for directories. Also, I don't see any advantage of shell links over the current mount implementation. So, at the moment, I don't see a compelling role for shell links in Cygwin. But don't let the fact that I'm tossing cold water onto the notion of supporting shell links in Cygwin stop you if you think there's value in the idea. Feel free to implement something and send in a patch. Then folks can discuss the pros and cons in the light of a concrete example.




-- Larry Hall lhall at rfk dot com RFK Partners, Inc. http://www.rfk.com 838 Washington Street (508) 893-9779 - RFK Office Holliston, MA 01746 (508) 893-9889 - FAX


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