Groups > comp.lang.python > #20747

Re: Just curious: why is /usr/bin/python not a symlink?

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From	Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu>
Subject	Re: Just curious: why is /usr/bin/python not a symlink?
Date	Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:11:33 -0500
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On 2/23/2012 2:34 PM, HoneyMonster wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:24:23 -0500, Jerry Hill wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 2:11 PM, HoneyMonster
>> <someone@someplace.invalid>  wrote:
>>> $ cd /usr/bin $ ls -l python*
>>> -rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 9496 Oct 27 02:42 python lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root
>>>     6 Oct 29 19:34 python2 ->  python -rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 9496 Oct 27
>>> 02:42 python2.7 $ diff -s  python python2.7 Files python and python2.7
>>> are identical $
>>>
>>> I'm just curious: Why two identical files rather than a symlink?
>>
>> It's not two files, it's a hardlink.  You can confirm by running ls -li
>> python* and comparing the inode numbers.
>
> You are spot on. Thank you, and sorry for my stupidity.

The question 'why a hardlink rather than symlink' is not stupid. It was 
part of the discussion of http://python.org/dev/peps/pep-0394/
The answer was 'history' and how things were 20 years ago and either the 
pep or the discussion around it says symlinks are fine now and the 
decision is up to distributors.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy

Thread

Just curious: why is /usr/bin/python not a symlink? HoneyMonster <someone@someplace.invalid> - 2012-02-23 19:11 +0000
  Re: Just curious: why is /usr/bin/python not a symlink? Colin Higwell <colinh@somewhere.invalid> - 2012-02-23 19:15 +0000
  Re: Just curious: why is /usr/bin/python not a symlink? Jerry Hill <malaclypse2@gmail.com> - 2012-02-23 14:24 -0500
    Re: Just curious: why is /usr/bin/python not a symlink? HoneyMonster <someone@someplace.invalid> - 2012-02-23 19:34 +0000
      Re: Just curious: why is /usr/bin/python not a symlink? Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2012-02-23 16:11 -0500
        Re: Just curious: why is /usr/bin/python not a symlink? John Roth <johnroth1@gmail.com> - 2012-02-24 09:22 -0800
      Re: Just curious: why is /usr/bin/python not a symlink? Jerry Hill <malaclypse2@gmail.com> - 2012-02-23 14:54 -0500
        Re: Just curious: why is /usr/bin/python not a symlink? Thomas Rachel <nutznetz-0c1b6768-bfa9-48d5-a470-7603bd3aa915@spamschutz.glglgl.de> - 2012-02-24 08:47 +0100
          Re: Just curious: why is /usr/bin/python not a symlink? Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2012-02-24 08:17 -0500
  Re: Just curious: why is /usr/bin/python not a symlink? Chris Rebert <clp2@rebertia.com> - 2012-02-23 11:26 -0800

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