diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'doc/file.n')
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/file.n | 40 |
1 files changed, 22 insertions, 18 deletions
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ '\" See the file "license.terms" for information on usage and redistribution '\" of this file, and for a DISCLAIMER OF ALL WARRANTIES. '\" -'\" RCS: @(#) $Id: file.n,v 1.26 2003/12/12 17:02:13 vincentdarley Exp $ +'\" RCS: @(#) $Id: file.n,v 1.27 2003/12/17 17:47:28 vincentdarley Exp $ '\" .so man.macros .TH file n 8.3 Tcl "Tcl Built-In Commands" @@ -206,30 +206,34 @@ If only one argument is given, that argument is assumed to be seems to be the case with hard links, which look just like ordinary files), then an error is returned. . -If 2 arguments are given, then these are assumed to be \fIlinkName\fR and -\fItarget\fR. If \fIlinkName\fR already exists, or if \fItarget\fR +If 2 arguments are given, then these are assumed to be \fIlinkName\fR +and \fItarget\fR. If \fIlinkName\fR already exists, or if \fItarget\fR doesn't exist, an error will be returned. Otherwise, Tcl creates a new -link called \fIlinkName\fR which points to the existing filesystem object -at \fItarget\fR, where the type of the link is platform-specific (on Unix -a symbolic link will be the default). This is useful for the case where -the user wishes to create a link in a cross-platform way, and doesn't -care what type of link is created. +link called \fIlinkName\fR which points to the existing filesystem +object at \fItarget\fR (which is also the returned value), where the +type of the link is platform-specific (on Unix a symbolic link will be +the default). This is useful for the case where the user wishes to +create a link in a cross-platform way, and doesn't care what type of +link is created. . If the user wishes to make a link of a specific type only, (and signal an error if for some reason that is not possible), then the optional \fI-linktype\fR argument should be given. Accepted values for \fI-linktype\fR are "-symbolic" and "-hard". . -On Unix, symbolic links can be made to relative paths, but on all other -platforms target paths will be converted to absolute, normalized form -before the link is created (and "~user" paths are always expanded to -absolute form). When creating links on filesystems that -either do not support any links, or do not support the specific type -requested, an error message will be returned. In particular Windows 95, -98 and ME do not support any links at present, but most Unix platforms -support both symbolic and hard links (the latter for files only), MacOS -supports symbolic links and Windows NT/2000/XP (on NTFS drives) support -symbolic directory links and hard file links. +On Unix, symbolic links can be made to relative paths, and those paths +must be relative to the actual \fIlinkName\fR's location (not to the +cwd), but on all other platforms where relative links are not supported, +target paths will always be converted to absolute, normalized form +before the link is created (and therefore relative paths are interpreted +as relative to the cwd). Furthermore, "~user" paths are always expanded +to absolute form. When creating links on filesystems that either do not +support any links, or do not support the specific type requested, an +error message will be returned. In particular Windows 95, 98 and ME do +not support any links at present, but most Unix platforms support both +symbolic and hard links (the latter for files only), MacOS supports +symbolic links and Windows NT/2000/XP (on NTFS drives) support symbolic +directory links and hard file links. .TP \fBfile lstat \fIname varName\fR . |