bug#32127: RFE -- in the way "cp -rl" -- enable 'ln' to do likewise?

[L A Walsh]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	bug#32127: RFE -- in the way "cp -rl" -- enable 'ln' to do 
likewise?
Resent-Date:    Thu, 12 Jul 2018 07:17:02 +0000
Resent-From:    L A Walsh <address@hidden>
Resent-CC:      address@hidden
Date:   Thu, 12 Jul 2018 00:16:50 -0700
From:   L A Walsh <address@hidden>
To:     Paul Eggert <address@hidden>
CC:     address@hidden
References: 	<address@hidden> 
<address@hidden>



Paul Eggert wrote:
> L A Walsh wrote:
> > Like I'll want an "RCS" dir to point to 1 RCS tree -- so I try to use
> > ln <existing RCSdir> <new RCS loc>.  ln, of course seems to think I
> > want the impossible -- and says you can't have hard-linked directories.
>
> You can use "ln -s" instead of plain "ln". If that's not what you want, then I'm 
> afraid I don't understand what you want, exactly.
---
        Yes, I can retype the command after getting an error telling
me that regular links to directories are invalid.

        I'm asking why does 'ln' bother to tell the user that they are wrong 
and do nothing useful?  Why not just go ahead and create a symlink -- since it 
is likely that is what is wanted and is the only type of link that works?

        If needed, it could even tell the user that hard links don't
work so it created a symlink instead.  That way, in the mostly likely case 
(user wanted a symlink and left off the '-l'), they user would have the symlink 
created and would not have to re-enter the command.