Creating hardlinks for directories.

[Charles Curley]

On Sun, Jan 15, 2006 at 04:40:20PM +0530, Vikram Goyal wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I wanted to create hardlinks for directories on the same file system.
> I know it's not allowed. But the man page for ln says one may. Now I
> want to know how may one switch it on.
> 
> Also what could be the pitfalls.

Don't. Use an alternative, such as symlinks.

Should you manage to change the normal directory tree stucture into a
circular structure, you will break a great many programs that depend
on the file system being a tree. For example, the nightly slocate cron
job will take forever, or until it fills up the hard drive. Backup
tools such as tar will be similarly broken.

And you won't always know when you create a circular link.

Also, because hard links may not cross file system boundaries,
programs that use them may not be portable.

I learned a lot about the evils of hard linking directories while
writing backup software. Believe me, you don't want to learn about
those evils. Joseph Conrad could have written that story.

-- 

Charles Curley                  /"\    ASCII Ribbon Campaign
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