Patrick, On Wednesday 01 September 2004 08:46, Patrick Shanahan wrote:
* Randall R Schulz <rschulz@sonic.net> [09-01-04 09:34]:
On Wednesday 01 September 2004 07:10, Danny Sauer wrote:
I'd go on, but I think that perhaps a description of what a symlink actually *is* might be in order. Again, I'm making assumptions, but it seems like you may not have a very good handle on what a symlink is for, what it does, etc. :)
I answered _that_ question just a week ago in <news:alt.os.linux.suse>! Look for the post from me with the subject "Re: KDE 3.3 fixing screensavers" on 2004-08-24 at 15:43.
Thus, you are implying that the OP should have researched the different aspects of his problem/question (finding your explanation) and perhaps arrived at his own solution, or you would have posted that reference or information here, also.
I'm not implying anything. You're inferring it, and not validly, either. Why, oh why can't you refrain from posting if you're not going to make a positive contribution? At least I gave the information needed to find a contribution I already made, albeit in a different forum. If you've got a problem with me personally, send mail to me, please. Here is (an excerpt from) the <news:alt.os.linux.suse> posting I referred to -==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==-
Anyway, symbolic links are aliases that act as pointers from one name to another (in contrast to hard links, which are co-equal aliases that do not involve a redirection to another name and have other limitations).
Thanks, but - huh?
What would a pointer do? Why would I need one? Is this kind of like an extension to the path variable, only on a per-file/directory basis?
... Sometimes it's desirable to have more than one name refer to the same file. Modern Unixes (and all work-alikes such as Linux) have two mechanisms for accomplishing this, the "hard link" and the "soft" or "symbolic link." Hard links are just multiple directory entries that refer to the same file. A directory entry may only refer to a file that's on the same file system volume or partition as the directory entry. Symbolic links are actually just small files whose contents are another file name to use in place of or in addition to the symbolic link's name itself. Symbolic links are very handy so that programs or users can have stable names for things that have to change (due to version updates, e.g.) or move around (due to file system reorganization or space considerations, e.g.). So for example, on my SuSE 9.1 Pro system with Java installed these directory entries appear in /usr/lib: % ll -d /usr/lib/*[Jj]ava* lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 2004-06-17 23:55 /usr/lib/java -> SunJava2-1.4/ lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 2004-06-17 23:55 /usr/lib/java2 -> SunJava2-1.4/ lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 2004-06-17 23:55 /usr/lib/SunJava2 -> SunJava2-1.4/ lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 14 2004-06-17 22:51 /usr/lib/SunJava2-1.4 -> SunJava2-1.4.2/ drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 64 2004-06-17 22:56 /usr/lib/SunJava2-1.4.2/ The name after the arrow is the content of the symbolic link and shows what is added to (if it's a relative name--one tbat does not start with '/') or used in place of (if it's an absolute name). In this example, /usr/lib/java is a symbolic link to /usr/lib/SunJava201.4 which is in turn a symbolic link to SunJava2-1.4.2. So when Sun releases Java 1.4.3, I can install it and leave 1.4.2 in place (in case there's a bug in 1.4.3) and then when that bug bites me, I can switch back to the known working version by merely changing the symbolic link that now points from SunJava2-1.4 to SunJava2-1.4.3 back to SunJava2-1.4.2 and programs that were tripping over that bug will start working again. -==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==- This is somewwhat out of context here. Anyone who wants that context is just going to have to read the thread in news.
Patrick Shanahan
Randall Schulz