Re: zero-length symlinks

[Sverre Froyen <sverre%viewmark.com@localhost>]

On 2013-11-03, at 11:47, Hubert Feyrer <hubert%feyrer.de@localhost> wrote:

> On Sat, 2 Nov 2013, David Holland wrote:
>> > I think "not sensible" is not a good enough reason to prohibit
>> > something.
>> 
>> Yeah yeah, but still nowadays we don't allow adding hard links to
>> directories. So while that's a valid premise, it's not universal.
> 
> FWIW, the idea not allowing hard links to directories is that ".." wouldn't 
> be unique any more. I don't see such a thing with a symlink pointing to “".

On Unix System V, the link command would allow hard-linking directories when 
used as root. A quick test shows that NetBSD does not allow this. Was the 
feature removed from NetBSD (or BSD) at some point or was it an addition to 
Bell Labs Unix after Berkeley received the Bell Labs sources? Perhaps a feature 
unique to the v7 file system.

Regards,
Sverre