hard links vs. sym links

[Doug Alcorn]

I've been struggling with a problem for almost a year now and haven't
found a good solution.  I make heavy use of the Link command to handle
using common code for multiple modules.  The problem is that my editor
(xemacs, but it's the same for gnu emacs) doesn't grok hard-links.
Strange, I know.  What happens if you try to open both the linked file
and the "original" file is that emacs thinks they are two different
files.  You can have them both up in seperate buffers and modify each
to your hearts content.  Each time you save one of the buffers, it
blows away the changes previously saved from the other buffer.  It
gets quite confusing.  The reason this is an issue is because of the
way the compile errors are handled and the way gdb is handled.  Both
modes/programs think that the actual file you are working on is the
one that is in the Linked directory.

I know that The Right Thing to do is fix emacs.  You would think that
such a powerful program would understand something like hard links.
However, this doesn't seem likely.  What's frustrating is that vim
handles this correctly.  If you modify one buffer, any other buffers
that have files that are hard linked update as you type.

Anyway, since I can't seem to get emacs working correctly I thought I
would try and "break" cons.  Is there any reason why a symlink
wouldn't work as well as a hard link?  I understand it eats up
available inodes; I can live with that.  I'm just wondering about the
internals of cons.  Can it handle symlinks?  Does it break the md5sum?

-- 
 (__) Doug Alcorn (mailto:address@hidden http://www.lathi.net)
 oo / PGP 02B3 1E26 BCF2 9AAF 93F1  61D7 450C B264 3E63 D543
 |_/  If you're a capitalist and you have the best goods and they're
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