Re: ln "" foo gives misleading error message

[Bob Proulx]

Andreas Schwab wrote:
> IMHO it is a kernel bug to give an error here.  The symlink target shall
> not be parsed at symlink creation, and POSIX does not place any
> restriction on it apart from the maximum length.

Agreed.  So far I can't think of any reason not to allow an empty
string there.  Seems like a kernel bug.

> An empty name never resolves to a file, so any attempt to follow this
> symlink should fail with ENOENT (but not the symlink creation).
> 
> > Perhaps the kernel authors were simply avoiding that question of
> > defining what to do with a zero length value for the symlink.
> > Allowing it may open more problems than they wanted to deal with and
> > simply using ENOENT perhaps the simplest error to return in that case.
> 
> Since the symlink target needs to be parsed every time the link is
> followed I don't see how this can create more problems.

After some thinking I agree with you.  It would be just the same as if
an empty string were given for the original file.

Seems like a Linux kernel bug.

Bob