Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (3120 mails)

[John Andersen <jsa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Monday 16 December 2002 11:52 am, Anders Johansson wrote:
> On Monday 16 December 2002 21.36, John Andersen wrote:
> > On Monday 16 December 2002 06:01 am, Anders Johansson wrote:
> > > > get rid of a link.  This is really stupid.  How can a beginner
> > > > be expected to guess that rm is the way to get rid of a link?
> > >
> > > A link is a file. You use rm to remove a file. The deductive leap isn't
> > > that large
> >
> > Say Anders...:
> >   How do I get rid of a member of a partitioned data set on
> >   my IBM 370 under MVS?
>
> Having never worked directly with MVS I wouldn't know. I do know that IBM
> is pretty good with its interfaces, so it's probably a menu option. i
> vaguely remember seeing something in a roscoe menu, but it was too long
> ago, I can't be certain. If MVS commands anything like OS/400 it's probably
> something like wrkprtdtaset from the command prompt :)
>
> >   Get my point?
>
> Not really. Did you get mine?
>
> If the manual tells you that a symlink is just another file, and the
> section on files tells you that you remove files using 'rm', is it really
> necessary to repeat that piece of information in the section on symlinks?
> Are cross-references pedagogically bad?

The point was that in a totally new computing environment it
can be a big challange to figure  out which is the proper manual
to read let alone be able to draw inferances.  (A PDS is something
so basic to MVS that it is documented (extensivly) in some obscure manual 
which you may or may not have, but i've never seen it on any menu.

The OP was obviously from a windows environment where Bill
Gates just "invented" links last year, and therefore they can be
quite mysterious.

And thinking of a link as a file is NOT  correct.  Its just
another pointer to a file, essentially another directory entry
pointing to the file, and it acts quite differently than the
actual file.  (You can change permissions on a symbolic
link till you are blue in the face and still achieve the
desired results.) RMing the link may, or may not, remove the file,
etc.

The man pages for link, symlink, and ln, all sort of gloss
over the removal aspect.  

In short  it seems obvious to you and I, but its not 
unreasonable for a new linux user to be confused
about this point.









-- 
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John Andersen / Juneau Alaska