From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Stefan Monnier" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Tramp: how to handle make-symbolic-link? Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 16:12:31 -0400 Sender: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org Message-ID: <200206242012.g5OKCV904075@rum.cs.yale.edu> References: <200206241939.g5OJdRF26200@aztec.santafe.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1024949706 18651 127.0.0.1 (24 Jun 2002 20:15:06 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 20:15:06 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE, emacs-devel@gnu.org Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.33 #1 (Debian)) id 17MaEs-0004qi-00 for ; Mon, 24 Jun 2002 22:15:06 +0200 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([199.232.76.164]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 17MaGA-0003ws-00 for ; Mon, 24 Jun 2002 22:16:27 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 3.34 #1 (Debian)) id 17MaEy-0005ap-00; Mon, 24 Jun 2002 16:15:12 -0400 Original-Received: from rum.cs.yale.edu ([128.36.229.169]) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 3.34 #1 (Debian)) id 17MaCO-0005Tj-00; Mon, 24 Jun 2002 16:12:32 -0400 Original-Received: (from monnier@localhost) by rum.cs.yale.edu (8.11.6/8.11.6) id g5OKCV904075; Mon, 24 Jun 2002 16:12:31 -0400 X-Mailer: exmh version 2.4 06/23/2000 with nmh-1.0.4 Original-To: Richard Stallman Errors-To: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.9 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:5167 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:5167 > So the LINKNAME argument does not look like a Tramp filename. But > what if the target of the symbolic link is an absolute filename? > Which of the two kinds of calls do we expect? > > (make-symbolic-link "/user@host:/name/of/file" "/user@host:/path/to/target") > (make-symbolic-link "/user@host:/name/of/file" "/path/to/target") > > I disagree with the view that the link target is just a string. > It is meant to be a file name. > > Assuming that symlinks in the remote file system can only point to > that same remote file system, the former request is possible, and the > latter should get an error because there is no way to make a link to > the local machine's disk. make-symbolic-link should not prevent you from creating to a link to a file that doesn't exist. Especially since you can pretty much never tell whether the file will ever exist or not. Maybe my point of view is too posix-centric, but I really would be annoyed if eshell prevented me from creating symlinks just on the basis that Emacs thinks the target is "invalid". I use invalid targets all the time (g.e. because the filesystem is currently mounted at a different location than the "final" one, or because I want to store non-filenames and have `ls -l' show me that data or because I know that the data is small and that my filesystem stores such data more efficiently if I use symlinks rather than files, ...). And I don't think my usage pattern is unique. Stefan