03-23-2008
A challenging problem involving symbolic links.
Hello,
I'm working on an application that bridges together several applications involved in creating a video workflow for editing with digital cinema cameras. The main platform is MacOSX.
Because of the nature of some of the utilities for working with this video footage I must spoof filenames by using symbolic links to essentially rename files. This hack works great most of the time, but on some systems (possibly Leopard systems) it runs into problems, I've isolated them into two:
In some situations, a symbolically linked file won't be recognized by a program, and won't appear in the softwares non-cocoa file selector. But other times it does. A system reboot will often remedy the problem, but I seek a way to check for this for users of my bridge.
The second is sometimes the program will load a symbolic link, but it will refer to it by a /Volume path only. So for example it will refer to the path to the symbolic link as /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Users/Username/Desktop etc. instead of /Users/Username/Desktop ... etc. Again, only in some situation not in all. (I believe mostly on Leopard, but I'm not certain yet)
Looking to gain a deeper understanding of how symbolic links are processed by the system. Thanks in advance for any insights.
IBloom
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ln(1) General Commands Manual ln(1)
Name
ln - link to a file
Syntax
ln [ -f ] [ -i ] [ -s ] name1 [name2]
ln [ -f ] [ -i ] [ -s ] name ... directory
Description
A link is a directory entry referring to a file. A file, together with its size and all its protection information may have several links
to it. There are two kinds of links: hard links and symbolic links.
By default makes hard links. A hard link to a file is indistinguishable from the original directory entry. Any changes to a file are
effective independent of the name used to reference the file. Hard links may not span file systems and may not refer to directories.
Given one or two arguments, creates a link to an existing file name1. If name2 is given, the link has that name. The name2 may also be a
directory in which to place the link. Otherwise it is placed in the current directory. If only the directory is specified, the link is
made to the last component of name1.
Given more than two arguments, makes links to all the named files in the named directory. The links made have the same name as the files
being linked to.
Options
-f Forces existing destination pathnames to be removed before linking without prompting for confirmation.
-i Write a prompt to standard output requesting information for each link that would overwrite an existing file. If the response from
standard input is affirmative, and if permissions allow, the link is done. The -i option has this effect even if the standard input is
not a terminal.
-s Creates a symbolic link.
A symbolic link contains the name of the file to which it is linked. The referenced file is used when an operation is performed on
the link. A on a symbolic link returns the linked-to file. An must be done to obtain information about the link. The call may be
used to read the contents of a symbolic link. Symbolic links may span file systems and may refer to directories.
See Also
cp(1), mv(1), rm(1), link(2), readlink(2), stat(2), symlink(2)
ln(1)