Messages in this thread |  | | From | Zefram <> | Subject | Re: How does chown(2) works with symlinks? | Date | Mon, 8 Jul 1996 10:46:59 +0100 (BST) |
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>The chown(2) syscall should follow the link(s). The OS provides another >call, lchown(2), for operating directly on a symlink (some also >provide a lchmod(2), such as SCO's OpenServer). There is also a >lstat(2).
That does make some sense if one is starting from scratch, but we are talking about Unix here. lchown(2) generally isn't available. Consequently, if you want chown(1) -R to do something useful, chown(2) can't follow the link. Like Linus said, use open(2) and fchown(2) if you want that behaviour -- that's the portable way to do it.
-zefram
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