Re: Scripting Additions: Embracing the Horror of Unix
Re: Scripting Additions: Embracing the Horror of Unix
- Subject: Re: Scripting Additions: Embracing the Horror of Unix
- From: Oliver Sun <email@hidden>
- Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 01:38:30 -0500
Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2002 20:48:40 -0800
From: John W Baxter <email@hidden>
Subject: Re: Scripting Additions: Embracing the Horror of Unix
On a Unix sort of file system (there really isn't a "the Unix file
system"), rm removes the hard link. That reduces the actual file's
count
of links by 1...if it has reached zero the file is actually removed. So
there's really no point in mentioning that case in the man page.
But if the file is hard linked in some other directory, reducing the
count
doesn't reach zero. Same result if some process has the file open
(since
that increases the link count).
I have no idea how Apple has managed to make HFS+ look like it works
that
way (or if it does look like it works that way).
Alias do not, in fact, work as either a hard link or a symlink.
(Interestingly, alias files do appear, but only as useless empty files,
in the BSD layer). Creating an alias in the Finder does not increase the
link count for the target file (you can check this by looking at the
second column returned by "ls -l").
Some info that helped me a great deal in understanding aliases vs
symbolic links can be found included in the Developer Tools, or at:
http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/Essentials/SystemOverview/FileSystem/
Aliases_and_bolic_Links.html
Cheers,
Oliver M. Sun
Indiana University/UITS