Re: Fwd: [bug #17877] Invalid "No such file or directory" error on filesystem without stable inode numbers

[Miklos Szeredi]

> But what about symlinks?
> 
>   a       g
>    b       h->a
>     c
>      f->g
> 
> The moment you traverse the f->g symlink above,
> the entire tree, a/b/c/f, is no longer referenced,
> so the h->a link may take you back to a new inode,
> and the cycle will not be detected.

Right.  So find either holds a file descriptor for each symlink
traversed, or just ignore this problems for inode-less filesystems
(find -L is relatively rarely used).

I agree that compromises are unavoidable.

However the bug I originally reported was not a theoretical one, it
was reported for a _real_ FUSE filesystem used on gentoo (which
carries find-4.3) and very likely will be reported for
smbfs/cifs/fat/etc sooner or later.

Miklos