Re: Strange symlink and mv interaction

[Igor Pechtchanski <pechtcha at cs dot nyu dot edu>]

On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Parker, Ron wrote:

> From inside of ~/src/myprojects I did a:
>
> 	mv -- --1.2 ~/tla--escapes--1.2
>
> where "--1.2" was a directory in ~/src/myprojects.  This did not move
> ~/src/myprojects/--1.2 to ~/src/tla--escapes--1.2.  What it did do was move
> it to /cygdrive/c/tla--escapes--1.2.

Tilde expansion is usually done by the shell.  However, judging from the
rest of your message, you meant the above to say

	mv -- --1.2 ../tla--escapes--1.2

More below.

> Here are the pertinent paths:
>
> /			is a binary system mount of	C:\cygwin
> /c			is a binary system mount of	C:\
> /home			is a binary system mount of	C:\home
> ~			is				/home/rdparker
> ~/src			is a directory,			/home/rdparker/src
> ~/src/myprojects	is a symlink to			/c/MyProjects
>
> The symlink is just intended to graft my Windows source into my preferred
> ~/src working location for use with reasonable tools.
>
> It appears that when mv did a ".." from ~/src/myprojects, it actually did a
> .. from /c/MyProjects not from ~/src/myprojects.  Is this the expected
> behavior?

This is the expected behavior.  The symlink takes you to the directory,
but the ".." uses the actual parent directory entry, which points to /c.
If you want this to work seamlessly, create an actual "~/src/myprojects"
directory, and use 'mount' to map /c/MyProjects to
/home/rdparker/src/myprojects.

> I don't have a *nix system handy to check out how .. works with
> symlinked directories.

The above is rather logical if you think about it.  FWIW, it does work the
same way on Linux (not surprisingly).

> I left my laptop at home today and my wife shut off my ssh box at home
> because the fan was scaring her rabbit.  (Hmm... how do small pets
> respond to contact with an Athlon?  I smell hasenpfeffer.  Sorry PETA,
> it's been a _long_ day.)

Just keep the rabbit out of the fan... :-)
	Igor
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