Re: Symlinks on Windows

Karl Fogel wrote:
> Eric Armstrong <Eric.Armstrong_at_Sun.COM> writes:
>> (Please cc me on any replies)
>>
>> This FAQ says that SVN handles symlinks, but
>> "windows doesn't have them":
>> http://subversion.tigris.org/faq.html#symlinks
>>
>> But Windows has had shortcuts for quite a while
>> now. Is the FAQ (hopefully) outdated?
>
> I think there was some specific reason why we couldn't just implement
> symlinks as shortcuts on Windows, but I don't remember what it was. If
> we find out, we should update the FAQ to talk about it.
>
Thanks, Karl. I suspect you're right that there is a
specific reason. While traveling around the web, I
came across a page that talked about some special system
tool for implementing symlinks on Windows:

http://shell-shocked.org/article.php?id=284
"Windows has had symbolic links since ... NTFS 5.0.
It used to be called "junction point" functionality,
and was renamed "reparse point" functionality by the time
Windows XP came out...

Which references what Nathan Zumwalt called, "a great tool
by Sysinternals for creating symbolic links:
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Junction.html

There is apparently something new in Vista, as well:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/using-symlinks-in-windows-vista/
"One of the long-awaited features in Windows Vista was the
ability to use symbolic links... Sadly, they don't work quite
as well as they could, but it's a big upgrade from prior versions...

-- 
Eric Armstrong, Document Systems Architect, Sun Microsystems
http://blogs.sun.com/coolstuff
http://www.artima.com/weblogs/index.jsp?blogger=cooltools
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