So long as you can open the file. Its possible you want to chown a file
you own
but can't open, and if chmod is consistent with chown (which I certainly
hope
is the case), you won't be able to chmod it before trying to open it.
> If you use "chown()" on the
> pathname it will change the synlink itself (if you think about it, that is
> actually the reasonable behaviour: otherwise you could never change the owner
> of the symlink).
It might be reasonable behaviour if there were ever a need to change the
owner
of a symlink. However, seeing as a symlink is a mere loophole in the
namespace
and has no function in itself, the owner, like its mode, is completely
irrelevent.
The only time I can think of where you'd care about the owner is for
quotas, and
even then that's pretty insignificant.
It seems to me that not following symlinks will be more surprising than
following
them, and therefore more likely to open holes.
J