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Semantic difference with/without CYGWIN=winsymlinks:nativestrict
- From: Paul Townsend <aab at purdue dot edu>
- To: "cygwin at cygwin dot com" <cygwin at cygwin dot com>
- Cc: Paul Townsend <aab at purdue dot edu>
- Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2018 08:46:24 +0000
- Subject: Semantic difference with/without CYGWIN=winsymlinks:nativestrict
Attempts to make symlinks are handled differently depending on (1) whether or not the target file pre-exists and (2) whether or not CYGWIN=winsymlinks:nativestrict is exported. Actually, 'ln' seems to require the pre-existence as if it were a hard link attempt when CYGWIN is defined. FWIW - 'ln' on Ubuntu 18.04 on WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) allows the target to be nonexistent.
The following is a very simplistic example:
$ unset CYGWIN
$ rm a b
$ ln -s a b
$ ls -l a b
ls: cannot access 'a': No such file or directory
lrwxrwxrwx 1 aab None 1 Sep 6 03:45 b -> a <=<=< not a "real" Windows type symlink
$ export CYGWIN=winsymlinks:nativestrict
$ rm a b
$ ln -s a b
ln: failed to create symbolic link 'b': No such file or directory
$ rm a b
rm: cannot remove 'a': No such file or directory
rm: cannot remove 'b': No such file or directory
$ touch a
$ ln -s a b
$ ls -l a b
-rw-r--r-- 1 aab None 0 Sep 6 03:55 a
lrwxrwxrwx 1 aab None 1 Sep 6 03:55 b -> a
$ rm a b
Found above when I downloaded the source for 'bash-4.4' and 'cygport'/'tar' attempted to make the symlink
bash-4.4/ChangeLog -> [bash-4.4/]CWRU/changelog
which did not yet exist. The error message is a bit confusing but it implies that the destination must pre-exist in order for the symlink to be made. FWIW - With CYGWIN exported as shown above, 'ln' does create real symlinks as verfied by Windows 10 File Explorer.
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