Re: Fixed libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2 package

[Raja R Harinath <harinath@cs.umn.edu>]

Hi,

Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org> writes:

> On Thu, Nov 14, 2002 at 05:08:51PM -0600, Gary Turner wrote:
>> On Thu, 14 Nov 2002 11:19:58 +0100, Matthias Klose wrote:
>> >The libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2_2.95.4-14 package contains a broken
>> >libstdc++ library. To work around the problem, provide the missing
>> >library by a smbolic link. Execute as root:
>> >
>> >ln -sf libstdc++-3libc6.2-2-2.10.0.so /usr/lib/libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3
>> 
>> My daddy always told me, 'when you get to a fork in the road, pick it
>> up'.  Will you please explain the -f option? man ln sz 'remove existing
>> destination files', but I don't know what that means.
>
> It means that, if the destination file
> (/usr/lib/libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3) already exists, then it'll be
> removed first and then the symlink will be created in its place.
> Otherwise you'll get:
>
>   ln: `/usr/lib/libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3': File exists
>
> ... if it's already there.
>
> So 'ln -sf foo bar' is equivalent to 'rm -f bar; ln -s foo bar'.

And it is a perversion to use 'ln -sf foo bar'.

Use

  ln -f -s foo bar

and live happily knowing that you didn't create a link named "foo"
pointing to "f" :-) 

'ln -sf' is a GNU ln extension.  It is safer to use 'ln -f -s',
especially if you traffic on other unices.

- Hari
-- 
Raja R Harinath ------------------------------ harinath@cs.umn.edu