Hard links

[David Ryder]

On Thu, 2009-02-12 at 17:06 +1000, Paul Gear wrote:
> David Ryder wrote:
> > ...
> >> The underlying reason is that a softlink is a 'reference in a
> >> directory' to another 'directory entry'. When you delete a file or
> >> directory, the filesystem has no 'local' record of who else may be
> >> pointing to (referencing it). So, it stops there, rather than scanning
> >> the entire filesystem when you delete each file to look for possible
> >> floating softlinks.
> > Much like Microsoft then. I thought a table was kept in linux.
> > 
> > Is there a way to list broken symlinks?
> > 
> > Thanks for explaining it to me, I very much appreciate your help.
> 
> Another issue is that symlinks can be on separate file systems from what
> they link to, whereas hard links cannot.  So even if there was a table
> of back links on disk, it would only work within the same file system.
> 
> Paul
I hadn't thought of that - thanks Paul.
David