[X-Unix] Utility "ln" makes a copy instead of hard link?

[Eric F Crist]

On Apr 7, 2006, at 3:56 PM, Doug McNutt wrote:

> It's curious but bash and sh, and also tcsh and csh, are usually  
> hard links to single files that behave a bit differently depending  
> on their names.
>
> In OS neXt that's not true. The files are copies and I'm pretty  
> sure there are other examples.
>
> I have been told that the reason is that Apple's hack to the HFS+  
> file system to make hard links work is so slow that Apple uses  
> copies for speed.
>
> Is it conceivable that that "feature" has anything to do with this  
> thread? The way TextEdit behaves, perhaps. I really don't think  
> Apple has mucked with the ln tool but. . .
>


Everyone should read Brian's reply to the OP.  There are many  
applications out there that, rather than write changes to an existing  
file, create a temp file to work from, and, when performing an actual  
save, over write the original file.  If this is the case, then the  
hard link would be over written during this process.  I'm sure that  
rather than acknowledging the hard links, the link gets deleted in  
the process.

-----
Eric F Crist
Secure Computing Networks
http://www.secure-computing.net