Re: Hardlink Pitfalls (was: Patches for REALLY TINY 386 kernels)

[JÃrn Engel]

On Mon, 16 July 2007 22:14:41 +0530, Satyam Sharma wrote:
> On 7/16/07, Al Boldi <a1426z@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >Satyam Sharma wrote:
> >> Or just "cp -al" to create multiple trees at (almost) no disk cost
> >> that won't interfere with each other in any way, and makes the
> >> development process / generating patchsets trifle easier as well ...
> >
> >That would be correct if hardlinks would actually do a CoW on modify, 
> >instead
> >of misleading the user into thinking he is modifying an independent file.
> 
> "patch" already handles this correctly ... and backupcopy=auto,breakhardlink
> in vim (and something similar in other editors I presume)

Yet even a single program failing to break the link will leave you with
a mess to sort out.  The only place that can ensure to always break the
link is the kernel.  Which is why I wrote the cowlink patches some years
back.

The still need a lot of love to be merge-ready.  But I do use them on a
daily basis.

JÃrn

-- 
Joern's library part 2:
http://www.art.net/~hopkins/Don/unix-haters/tirix/embarrassing-memo.html
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