Re: [Mingw-users] symbolic links and make

[Luke D. <cod...@ho...>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mehul N. Sanghvi" <me...@ki...>
To: "Joerg Bruehe" <jo...@sq...>
Cc: <min...@li...>
Sent: Friday, November 29, 2002 4:22 AM
Subject: Re: [Mingw-users] symbolic links and make


>
> You are right, Windows does not have "symbolic links" as we do under
> Unix and its variants.  I guess I am showing my Unixness when I use
> the term "symbolic links".  In Windwos you would call it a "shortcut"
> to my knowledge.

Unfortunately shortcuts are only supported by the Windows shell, not by any
C libraries or the kernel.

>
> > >
> > >     If I keep TOP as a symbolic link, then only cygwin tools seem to
> > >     work correctly.  I am doing all of this from inside of Cygwin bash
> > >     shell.
> >
> > IMO this is due to the fact that they use their own runtime library
> > and _not_ the Windows libraries. Whatever CygWin creates for you,
> > Windows (runtime, API, ...) does not recognize it as a "symbolic link".
> > Check with the Windows "Explorer" - is it shown / handled as a
> > directory?
>
> Windows "Explorer" does not show it as a directory,  but it does
> behave like one.  If I click on TOP, it takes me to the directory that
> it points to.
>
> The Command shell in Windows however,  does not follow the shortcut
> properly.

As you can see, shortcuts are just a feature of Windows explorer, not the
actual operating system.

>
> One of the problems I face is that as I go deeper into the directory
> structre, the pathnames get longer and longer,  which is why i use the
> "symbolic link" TOP.  Maybe I should download and try this out with
> MSYS and see how it works under that.  Regardless, I believe it would
> be a nice feature to have if its not there.

The symbolic link features of Cygwin were deliberately removed from MSYS
because they do not fit with the purpose of MSYS. Normal Win32 programs like
Mingw GCC know nothing about shortcuts/symlinks so there is really no point
in having MSYS support them.

>
> mehul
>
>
> --
> Mehul N. Sanghvi                  email: me...@ki...
> Superior software is always free!   URL: http://kirsun.com/~mehul

Luke Dunstan