Also sprach Colin Watson (Wed 06 Aug 02003 at 07:21:57PM +0100):
> On Wed, Aug 06, 2003 at 12:48:11PM -0500, Michael D. Schleif wrote:
> > Actually, that script removes every symbolic link that does not test
> > successfully as a regular file. Yes, that test will follow the symbolic
> > link; but, it will only check whether or not the destination is a
> > regular file. It does *NOT* test for dangling symlink at all! On my
> > system, I have *many* symlinks to directories, all of which contain
> > something, and this script flags *ALL* of them for removal . . .
> >
> > What could be the purpose of this script?
>
> It's a utility to reverse the effects of lndir, which is mainly intended
> for building cheap copies of source trees. See their respective man
> pages.
Colin, I do not want to dis you, and I did not know that you _are_ David
Dawes ;>
However, on my systems, man cleanlinks produces this:
NAME
cleanlinks - remove dangling symbolic links and empty directories
...
DESCRIPTION
The cleanlinks program searches the directory tree descended from the
current directory for symbolic links whose targets do not exist, and
removes them. It then removes all empty directories in that directory
tree.
cleanlinks is useful for cleaning up a shadow link tree created with
lndir(1) after files have been removed from the real directory.
Pardon my understanding; but, the name line and the first description
paragraph are quite clear. Not to mention, that they are erroneous, and
dangerously misleading.
The _second_ description paragraph, especially that phrase ``is useful
for'', appears to me to be an afterthought -- not the actual program
intent.
What am I missing?
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Best Regards,
mds
mds resource
877.596.8237
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Dare to fix things before they break . . .
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Our capacity for understanding is inversely proportional to how much
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