Re: Tramp: how to handle make-symbolic-link?

[Stefan Monnier]

>     > Assuming that symlinks in the remote file system can only point to
>     > that same remote file system, the former request is possible, and the
>     > latter should get an error because there is no way to make a link to
>     > the local machine's disk.
> 
>     make-symbolic-link should not prevent you from creating to a link
>     to a file that doesn't exist.  Especially since you can pretty much
>     never tell whether the file will ever exist or not.
> 
> I agree, but that is not the issue here.  Either way, it will be
> possible to make links to files that don't exist.  The issue is about
> links that would appear to point to another machine.  Symbolic links
> are interpreted by the OS, and it does not understand Emacs remote
> file names.  So a link can only point to a file on the same machine.
> 
> In Emacs, that link target is a remote file name.  It always points
> to a remote file.
> 
> It seems that the consistent scheme is that you specify the link target
> using a remote file on the same remote machine, and the mechanism
> to create the link deletes the remote prefix before really creating
> the link.

I was not arguing about the rewrite when the target is
/address@hidden:/destina/tion an error because there is no way to make a link to
the local machine's disk".

I don't like the rewriting, but I can live with it.  OTOH, raising an
error just because Emacs thinks the operation doesn't make any sense
would just be wrong.  Especially since it's not trivial for elisp code
to transform "/destina/tion" into "/address@hidden:/destina/tion".


        Stefan