File links and Nautilus CD-Writer

[Matthew Davidson]

Kent Frazier wrote:
> Hard links are treated as if they were the original file.  If you
> delete a hard link, it will delete the original file as well. 

Just being pedantic: if you delete the _last_ hard link to the file, you 
delete the file.  That's why in traditional Unix programming, the 
function you use to delete a file is "unlink", and in fact there's an 
unlink command which you can use as a featureless equivalent to "rm".

When you create a file, you create the first hard link to it, and all 
subsequent hard links are considered equal, so you can rm the file under 
it's original name, but it will still exist.  If you do the same with a 
file you've created symlinks to, you will actually delete the file (and 
  create hanging symlinks).

That said, symlinks are generally preferred because, among other things, 
  they don't have to be on the same partition as the file they link to.

> Symbolic links, which are the most common, work similarly to Windows
> shortcuts, but not exactly the same.  They are much more powerful.  I
> think some apps let you choose whether to write the links or to write
> the files they refer to.

Symlinks are much more low-level than Windows shortcuts.  That means 
applications don't have to know what symlinks are to behave in a 
sensible way.  It's been a while since I used Windows, but I seem to 
recall trying to open a file via a shortcut in a pre-win9x app, and 
getting a small file of gibberish.  That would never happen with 
symlinks, because they're implemented below application level.

Most file archiving apps give you options like tar's "--dereference" 
which allows you to choose which behaviour you prefer.  Be careful if 
you have symlinks to directories, because you could find yourself in an 
infinite recursion if you've ever done something like:

$ ln -s ../ parent

> Good night.

and good afternoon.

Matthew.

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