Re: cache_lookup() work this week.

[Matthew Dillon <dillon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

:  How do tree walking programs resolve cycles created by hardlinking
:  directories.
:
:  ie. ln /tmp /tmp/recurse; rm -rf /tmp/*

    It's fairly easy to teach something like rm about cycles, it need only
    record the inode number for the directory path it maintains while
    removing the files.  But it's probably safer to disallow cyclic links
    or, at least, the initial creation of a cyclic link.

    A directory hardlink can very usefully replace what people use nullfs
    mounts for now, as well as other things.

:>     (B) it will be possible to implement semi-hard links,
:>     basically softlinks that *look* like hardlinks and 
:
:  Look like hardlinks to whom?
:
:-billy

    Normal hardlinks cannot cross mount boundaries.  Softlinks can, but if you
    cd into a softlinked directory and then cd .. the path information is
    lost (unless you use something like the tcsh feature which makes its 
    built-in cd remember it).  So a semi-hard link is basically going to be 
    a softlink that is able to cross a mount boundary and otherwise acts
    and feels like a hard link if you CD into it or use it as part of
    a path.  /var/tmp would be a good example.  e.g. if /var/tmp is a 
    semi-hard link to /tmp a path like /var/tmp/.. would yield "/var" rather
    then "/" if it were a softlink.

					-Matt
					Matthew Dillon 
					<dillon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>