Re: Feature Request: make sane symlinks on remote host.

[Kai Großjohann]

Steve Youngs <address@hidden> writes:

> What I'd also like to do (also from eshell) is:
>
>  (make-symbolic-link "file" "symlink")
>
> But it tells me that "file" is not a Tramp filename.  If I do:
>
>  (make-symbolic-link "/[sm/address@hidden" "/[sm/address@hidden")
>
> ...it creates a symlink with a literal filename of
> "/[sm/address@hidden" that points to a non-existent file with the
> literal name of "/[sm/address@hidden".
>
> What I'd like the 'make-symbolic-link' to do is the same as if I had
> run 'ln -s file symlink' on the remote host.

Whee.  Just a couple of days ago, I was working on
make-symbolic-link.  Are you using the version from Tramp CVS?

Another question is: should both names be interpreted as Tramp names
or should one name be just a string?  I think that the first argument
(FILENAME, the target of the symlink) should be considered as a
string, because `ln -s' also does it this way.  But Richard agrees
with your interpretation.

Richard says that both arguments of make-symbolic-link should be
considered filenames, and hence treated as such.

I consider an analogy with `ln -s' behavior on other remote files:
NFS.  We have Suns booting via NFS.  There is a directory
server:/export/root/client which becomes the root (/) directory for
the client.  Now if I become address@hidden and go to the
/export/root/client directory and say `ln -s /some/file/name
symlink', then `ls -l' will show something like

    symlink -> /some/file/name

and accessing this symlink on server will open the file
server:/some/file/name.  But accessing the symlink on the client will
open a file client:/some/file/name, which is the same as
server:/export/root/client/some/file/name!

What do you think?  What do others think?

(I haven't tested it, but the current implementation should allow for
using symlinks as a kind of bookmark feature: in your home dir, you
say `ln -s "/[sm/address@hidden/path/to/file" bookmark'.  Now you
_should_ be able to say C-x C-f ~/bookmark RET to open the file on
the remote host.  But I haven't tested it.)

kai
-- 
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