RE: Re: link(2) and symlinks

[Albert Cahalan <yyyyyy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 2005-03-17 at 07:38 -0800, Donn Terry wrote:
> Dave reminds me...
> 
> The objective of some of the POSIX statements about symlinks was to
> permit a "fast symlink" implementation where the symlinks did not appear
> as inodes in the filesystem at all, but rather were "smart" directory
> entries.
> 
> If a symlink has a link count (and thus can be the target of a hard
> link) (or protections, or...) then "fast symlinks" become harder
> (effectively impractical), and it dictates that symlinks be implemented
> as inodes.

The act of hard linking can be made to change a "fast symlink"
into a normal symlink.