Re: [PLUG] traversing symbolically linked directories with bash

[Jack Hill <ejh56@drexel.edu>]

On Thu, 29 Dec 2011, Eric at Lucii.org wrote:

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> I've run across a behavior in bash that I thought was impossible.
>
> I'm running bash on an Ubuntu 10.04 box.
> Bash is:  GNU bash, version 4.1.5(1)-release (i486-pc-linux-gnu)
>
> I have a home directory and I create a soft link to another directory like this example:
>
>   /home/eric/appdata -> /opt/myapplication/users/eric/data
>
> Now I start a shell in my home directory, cd to appdata, and then try to see where I am:
>
>   shell builtin "pwd" returns:    /home/eric/appdata
>   executable /bin/pwd returns:    /home/eric/appdata
>   ls -l ..                        shows contents of /home/eric
>   cd ..                           takes me back to /home/eric
>
> SO FAR, SO GOOD.
>
> Next, I log on to a Debian system.
> Linux version 2.6.26-2-686 (Debian 2.6.26-27) (dannf@debian.org) (gcc version 4.1.3 20080704 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.2-25)) #1 SMP Wed Sep 21 04:35:47 UTC 2011
>
> I do the same thing...
>   shell builtin "pwd" returns:    /home/eric/appdata
>   executable /bin/pwd returns:    /opt/myapplication/users/eric/data   <- OOPS!
> Here's my problem:
>   ls -l ..                        shows contents of /opt/myapplication/users/eric, NOT /home/eric
>   cd ..                           takes me back to /opt/myapplication/users/eric,  NOT /home/eric
>
> Is there some bash setting I'm unaware of that causes this behavior?  It makes no sense to me!
> I don't even know how to do a Google search for it.  I thought it might be related to some aspect
> of posix mode but the behavior remains even after exec bash --posix  or set -o posix.

.. is hard when the filesystem becomes non-hierarchical. Have a 
look at this Plan 9 article: http://cm.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/lexnames.html

Jack
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