GNU bug report logs - #9896
ln man page ambiguity

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From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: "Voelker, Bernhard" <bernhard.voelker <at> siemens-enterprise.com>
Cc: "9896 <at> debbugs.gnu.org" <9896 <at> debbugs.gnu.org>, Jim Meyering <jim <at> meyering.net>, Michael J Daniel <michael.j.daniel <at> comcast.net>
Subject: bug#9896: acknowledged by developer (Re: bug#9896: ln man page ambiguity)
Date: Mon, 05 Dec 2011 14:47:21 -0800

On 11/20/11 23:53, Voelker, Bernhard wrote:
>  
> Paul Eggert wrote:
> +  -n, --no-dereference        treat LINK_NAME as a normal file if\n\
> +                                it is a symbolic link to a directory\n\
> 
> IMHO that's wrong.
> 
> ln also creates a hardlink of a symlink if that points to a file:
> 
> $ touch f
> $ ln -s f flink
> $ ln -n flink flink-n

You're right about ln's behavior, but the proposed wording is not
incorrect.  In the example, flink-n is not a symbolic link
to a directory, so the documentation says that "ln -n flink flink-n"
should behave like ordinary "ln flink flink-n", which is what happens.
In this respect, the proposed wording is no better or worse than
the current wording.

Perhaps the wording could be further improved.  To get things moving
in the meantime I committed the proposed wording.

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