Symlinks support status?

[Mark A. Flacy]

On 2007.11.04 10:43, Dov Feldstern wrote:
> 
> The original post is  
> here:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.mercurial.general/3527
> 
> The idea is basically to have the working directory appear --- to  
> allthe usual tools (compiler, editor, etc.) --- as it would on  
> asymlink-supporting system, i.e., the contents of the symlinks look  
> likethe contents of the linked-to files.

Well, it *wouldn't* look the same without additional metadata and smarts.

You'd have two copies of the same file in two different places; the  
symlink may be simply a convenience feature of some type.

ClearCase, for example, will create copies of the symlinked files in  
static views for file systems that don't support them.  ClearCase treats  
the two copies as hard-linked, as far as I can tell; checking one out  
leaves the other checked out too. 
Ah.  NTFS supports hard links  
(http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/fsutil_hardlink.mspx?mfr=true),  
so that's probably how Rational handled it.


I wonder if Mercurial supports hard links correctly.  Maybe you could  
just use those instead.

-- 
Mark A. Flacy