RE: Why do symlinks need to be system files

["Gary R. Van Sickle" <g dot r dot vansickle at worldnet dot att dot net>]

> Mark R. wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I've been busy attempting to use WinInstaller LE to create an MSI package
> > of cygwin so we can automatically deploy a customized build for our
> > department. This works for the most part, however when I deploy this to a
> > windows XP machine, all of the symlinks are broken. Ex/ vi doesn't work,
> > however vim does.
> >
> > When I tracked down the problem, it appears that symlinks require the
> > "system file" attribute to be set. Does anyone know why this is?
>
> Because that's part of how Cygwin recognizes them as symlinks.

To expand on that a bit, it's so Cygwin doesn't have to open and parse the
actual contents of every file it sees on a path to see if it's a symlink; it
only has to check those marked as system.  Since it's rare to find many files
marked system normally, this results in mega-savings speedwise.

Now if Microsoft would only get hip to this whole symlink thing....

--
Gary R. Van Sickle
Brewer.  Patriot.


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