GNU bug report logs - #11912
24.1; 'M' in Dired on a symlink does not refresh the display

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From: Andreas Schwab <schwab <at> linux-m68k.org>
To: Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi <at> gnus.org>
Cc: mvar.40k <at> gmail.com, 11912 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu, Richard Stallman <rms <at> gnu.org>
Subject: bug#11912: 24.1; 'M' in Dired on a symlink does not refresh the display
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2021 16:07:18 +0200

On Aug 26 2021, Lars Ingebrigtsen wrote:

> Richard Stallman <rms <at> gnu.org> writes:
>
>> I wouldn't assume that a user who uses M on a symlink in Dired wants
>> to alter the file it points to.  I think it is more likely that the
>> user did not realize it might do that.  Suppose you operate on 10
>> files and one is a symlink -- you might not even have noticed that one
>> is as symlink.
>
> Yes, that's a good point.  It's always ambiguous what the user really
> wants to do when doing operations on symlinks, and making Dired always
> "edit what's actually in the buffer" (i.e., the symlink itself) makes it
> less ambiguous (even if it might surprise people who expected Posix
> semantics).

But if the dired buffer was created with ls -L, shouldn't M follow
links?

Andreas.

-- 
Andreas Schwab, schwab <at> linux-m68k.org
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