native symlinks and non-existent targets

[clayne@anodized.com]

On Wed, Apr 24, 2024 at 10:11:52PM +0000, Christopher Layne via Cygwin wrote:
> Based on past threads I've read I believe the issue is actually with
> windows not allowing a symlink to be created with a non-existent target,
> but I do know windows does not care if you break a link after the fact.

Actually, after referring to some microsoft documentation, is this even
true?

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/symbolic-link-programming-considerations
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Programming Considerations (Local File Systems)

Article 03/03/2021 5 contributors

Keep the following programming considerations in mind when working with symbolic links:

* Symbolic links can point to a non-existent target.
* When creating a symbolic link, the operating system does not check to see if the target exists.
* If an application tries to open a non-existent target, ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND is returned.
* Symbolic links are reparse points. For more information, see Determining Whether a Directory Is a Mounted Folder.
* There is a maximum of 63 reparse points (and therefore symbolic links) allowed in a particular path.
  (Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP: There is a limit of 31 reparse points on any given path.)
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If it isn't true then this seems trivial to fix.

-cl