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

[Jim Meyering]

Miklos Szeredi <address@hidden> wrote:

>> > 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,
>
> BTW, this could make sense also if you want ultra-correctness on POSIX
> filesystems, since otherwise you might get false positives from the
> cycle detector.

I seem to recall that fts punts when dereferencing symlinks, by
turning off all use of fchdir/openat and instead reverting to the
use of full relative file names.  As such, it is then subject to the
PATH_MAX limitation.

So far, no one has complained :-)