03-11-2015
Single UNIX Specification v3
Quote:
3.163 File
An object that can be written to, or read from, or both. A file has certain attributes, including access permissions and type. File types include regular file, character special file, block special file, FIFO special file, symbolic link, socket, and directory. Other types of files may be supported by the implementation.
---------- Post updated at 01:30 PM ---------- Previous update was at 01:18 PM ----------
It seems to be POSIX-compliant behaviour. Look at this excerpt:
Quote:
4.11 Pathname Resolution
Pathname resolution is performed for a process to resolve a pathname to a particular file in a file hierarchy. There may be multiple pathnames that resolve to the same file.
Each filename in the pathname is located in the directory specified by its predecessor (for example, in the pathname fragment a/b, file b is located in directory a). Pathname resolution shall fail if this cannot be accomplished. If the pathname begins with a slash, the predecessor of the first filename in the pathname shall be taken to be the root directory of the process (such pathnames are referred to as "absolute pathnames"). If the pathname does not begin with a slash, the predecessor of the first filename of the pathname shall be taken to be the current working directory of the process (such pathnames are referred to as "relative pathnames").
The interpretation of a pathname component is dependent on the value of {NAME_MAX} and _POSIX_NO_TRUNC associated with the path prefix of that component. If any pathname component is longer than {NAME_MAX}, the implementation shall consider this an error.
A pathname that contains at least one non-slash character and that ends with one or more trailing slashes shall be resolved as if a single dot character ( '.' ) were appended to the pathname.
If a symbolic link is encountered during pathname resolution, the behavior shall depend on whether the pathname component is at the end of the pathname and on the function being performed. If all of the following are true, then pathname resolution is complete:
- This is the last pathname component of the pathname.
- The pathname has no trailing slash.
- The function is required to act on the symbolic link itself, or certain arguments direct that the function act on the symbolic link itself.
In all other cases, the system shall prefix the remaining pathname, if any, with the contents of the symbolic link. If the combined length exceeds {PATH_MAX}, and the implementation considers this to be an error, errnoshall be set to [ENAMETOOLONG] and an error indication shall be returned. Otherwise, the resolved pathname shall be the resolution of the pathname just created. If the resulting pathname does not begin with a slash, the predecessor of the first filename of the pathname is taken to be the directory containing the symbolic link.
If the system detects a loop in the pathname resolution process, it shall set errno to [ELOOP] and return an error indication. The same may happen if during the resolution process more symbolic links were followed than the implementation allows. This implementation-defined limit shall not be smaller than {SYMLOOP_MAX}.
The special filename dot shall refer to the directory specified by its predecessor. The special filename dot-dot shall refer to the parent directory of its predecessor directory. As a special case, in the root directory, dot-dot may refer to the root directory itself.
A pathname consisting of a single slash shall resolve to the root directory of the process. A null pathname shall not be successfully resolved. A pathname that begins with two successive slashes may be interpreted in an implementation-defined manner, although more than two leading slashes shall be treated as a single slash.
and -e tests, if a pathname resolves to a file that exists, not that pathname exists.
Man pages, as e.g. in AIX:
Quote:
-e FileName
Returns a True exit value if the specified FileName exists.
or in Linux:
are lying ;-)
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