GNU bug report logs - #13447
ln "" foo gives misleading error message

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Package: coreutils;

Reported by: Ken Irving <ken.irving <at> alaska.edu>

Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2013 08:32:01 UTC

Severity: normal

Tags: notabug

Done: Bob Proulx <bob <at> proulx.com>

Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.

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From: Eric Blake <eblake <at> redhat.com>
Cc: 13447 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Ken Irving <ken.irving <at> alaska.edu>, Austin Group <austin-group-l <at> opengroup.org>, Jim Meyering <jim <at> meyering.net>, Bob Proulx <bob <at> proulx.com>
Subject: bug#13447: ln "" foo gives misleading error message
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2013 09:08:51 -0700
[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
On 01/15/2013 07:15 AM, Eric Blake wrote:
> [adding the Austin Group]
> 

> 
> What do others on the Austin Group think about an empty string for path1
> in symlink()?  Current Linux rejects the symlink() call with ENOENT;
> FreeBSD 8.2 allows it but refuses to resolve the symlink ("ln -s '' a &&
> ls a/" reports ENOENT); Solaris 10 allows it and resolves the symlink as
> though it were '.' ("ln -s '' a && ls a/" reports the current directory
> contents).

In today's Austin Group meeting, I was tasked to open a new bug that
would state specifically how the empty symlink is resolved; the intent
is to allow both Solaris behavior (current directory) and BSD behavior
(ENOENT).  Meanwhile, everyone was in agreement that the Linux kernel
has a bug for rejecting the creation of an empty symlink, but once that
bug is fixed, then Linux can choose either Solaris or BSD behavior for
how to resolve such a symlink.

It will probably be a bug report similar to this one, which regarded how
to handle a symlink containing just slashes:
http://austingroupbugs.net/view.php?id=541

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake redhat com    +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

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This bug report was last modified 12 years and 188 days ago.

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