Re: Links emacs -> emacs-NN.MM.KK

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Sat, 06 Apr 2013 15:42:50 -0400
> 
> Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> 
> > Why do we create a hard link emacs -> emacs.NN.MM.KK when dumping in
> > the src directory, but a symbolic link in "make install"?  Why the
> > difference?
> 
> We use a symlink when installing if configure says they are supported.
> It just seems like the right thing to do in that case (makes it more
> obvious what is going on, people in the past have been confused about
> why bin/emacs was getting "installed twice", etc).
> 
> It's a relatively recent change to do so rather than use a hard link.
> Either I forgot to consider src/Makefile at that time, or decided it
> wasn't worth bothering to change that part, or decided there was some
> reason not to.

It's not in src/Makefile, it's in loadup.el, whicvh uses
add-name-to-file.

> Such a reason would be if we delete one end of the link and still
> expect the other to work. I'm afraid I don't remember which of these
> explanations applies, sorry.

OK, thanks.  So it shouldn't be a problem if the Windows build uses a
hard link in this case, I think, or a copy if the filesystem is FAT32
that doesn't support hard links.  Creating symlinks is a PITA on
Windows, as they require privileges and pop up UAC prompts.