GNU bug report logs - #28156
Emacs quietly munges symlink contents

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From: Michael Albinus <michael.albinus <at> gmx.de>
To: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
Cc: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>, p.stephani2 <at> gmail.com, 28156 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: bug#28156: Emacs quietly munges symlink contents
Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2017 09:28:28 +0200

Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu> writes:

Hi Paul,

> The symlink target is a string not a file name, so giving it to file
> name handler can cause the make-symbolic-link call to be
> misinterpreted.

If you want to have an absolute filename as LINKNAME, you typically call

(make-symbolic-link (expand-file-name target) (expand-file-name linkname))

In case of remote file names, (expand-file-name linkname) will always
return something like "/method:user <at> host:/path/to/linkname". I doubt,
that a user wants to see this literal string as symbolic link.

Furthermore, there is the OK-IF-ALREADY-EXISTS argument of
make-symbolic-string. This requires to regard LINKNAME as a file name,
and not as a literal string.

Best regards, Michael.

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