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

From Roy Smith <roy@panix.com>
Newsgroups comp.lang.python
Subject Re: Just curious: why is /usr/bin/python not a symlink?
Date 2012-02-24 08:17 -0500
Organization PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC
Message-ID <roy-FDAA66.08172524022012@news.panix.com> (permalink)
References <ji630k$52f$1@news.albasani.net> <mailman.84.1330025066.3037.python-list@python.org> <ji64bd$52f$3@news.albasani.net> <mailman.113.1330068784.3037.python-list@python.org> <ji7fbd$drj$1@r03.glglgl.gl>

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In article <ji7fbd$drj$1@r03.glglgl.gl>,
 Thomas Rachel 
 <nutznetz-0c1b6768-bfa9-48d5-a470-7603bd3aa915@spamschutz.glglgl.de> 
 wrote:

> Not only that, [hard and symbolic links] have slightly different 
> semantics.

This is true, but only for very large values of "slightly".

Symlinks, for example, can cross file system boundaries (including NFS 
mount points).  Symlinks can refer to locations that don't exist!  For 
example:

~$ ln -s foobar foo
~$ ls -l foo
lrwxr-xr-x  1 roy  staff  6 Feb 24 08:15 foo -> foobar
~$ cat foo
cat: foo: No such file or directory

Symlinks can be chained (i.e. a symlink points to someplace which in 
turn is another symlink).  They're really very different beasts.

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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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