Re[2]: ls -Ll derefernce but does not print dereferenced name

[Tobias C. Rittweiler]

Hello Bob,

Friday, May 24, 2002, 6:23:31 AM, you wrote:

>> i found a probably bug in ls -L (dereference) today, take a look:

BP> Thanks for the report.  But what you are seeing is not a bug.

-- Yes, actually I have thought it, but I have not been seeing the
   sense about it.

>> [...]
>> Why doesn't ls -L print the dereferenced name of the file the link is
>> pointing? Any reason?

BP> The behavior of -L is to dereference the symlink and report on the 
BP> target of the symlink.  But the name is still the same name as you
BP> referenced it the first time.  In other words it is doing what it is
BP> supposed to be doing.  It is just not doing what you want it to be
BP> doing.

-- Okay. But then the manpage is lacking a bit:

         -snip-
         -L, --dereference
             list entries pointed to by symbolic links
         -snap-

   So tell me, what do you designate as a list entry? The name isn't an
   entry?

   
>> It would be great if it did it, because you can determine a file a
>> link is pointing to [...]

BP> I think that would confuse a lot of people.  Ask it to list foo but
BP> instead it lists bar?  I will sit back now and see what other people's
BP> comments on this are.

-- The actual problem is to find out what is wanted. `find -follow'
   does the same as `ls -L', because they handle a link as a
   own file and not just as a link to a file (or dir) by means that
   the link would have to be resolved if it was handled as a link.

   In fact i can not express it with words, it's just a kind of flavour
   what a link is actual.

-- 
cheers,
       To*hoping it was understandable*bias

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