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Re: Cygwin and NTFS Junction Points
On Aug 4 12:44, Frank-Michael Moser wrote:
> Corinna,
http://cygwin.com/acronyms/#TOFU reformatted.
> Corinna Vinschen wrote:
> > To me, junction points are more like mount points,
> > not symlinks. Since mount points are transparent and don't act like
> > symlinks to cp/mv/rm and friends, I won't opt for treating junctions as
> > symlinks in the Cygwin DLL.
> >
> > At least not in the general case. In theory, we could implement it like
> > this: If the target is a fs, treat the junction like a mount point (aka,
> > transparently as a normal directory), otherwise, if the target is a
> > directory, treat the junction as a symlink.
> >
> > However, this is complicated, time consuming and error prone. I can easily
> > imagine that this behaviour results in a strange, unexpected behaviour for
> > some people.
> I understand your objections but I think this all could be seen from an
> alternate point of view.
>
> As you said, JPs, as they are implemented, are less useful than real
> POSIX symlinks. Now instead of miming Microsofts intention with the JPs,
> why not simply considering them consequently as symlinks in Cygwin and
> so making them really useful, at least for Cygwin users. This could be
> competed by installing NTFSLink and so getting JPs consequently and
> transparently handled as POSIX-like symlinks in Windows Explorer and
> Cygwin and thus making them *very* useful finally.
You don't want to have reparse points treated as symlinks all the time,
do you? That just sounds plain wrong to me. As I wrote, it would be
possible to treat them as symlinks, but that would neither make sense for
mounted file systems, nor for the general case (e.g., for instance, non-
Microsoft RPs). And then again, it's a lot of extra effort Cygwin has
to go through. For example when a RP should be removed, a simple
DeleteFile just doesn't work.
Well, either case, http://cygwin.com/acronyms/#SHTDI.
Corinna
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Corinna Vinschen Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Project Co-Leader mailto:cygwin@cygwin.com
Red Hat, Inc.
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