Re: [PATCH] Add a new lstat implementation based on Win32 API, and make stat use that implementation too.

Johannes Schindelin [off-list ref] writes:

On Mon, 3 Sep 2007, Marius Storm-Olsen wrote:

quoted

Robin Rosenberg said the following on 02.09.2007 22:27:

quoted

s?ndag 02 september 2007 skrev Marius Storm-Olsen:

quoted

(Also, since Windows doesn't really handle symlinks, it's fine that 
stat just uses lstat)

It does now: See 
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa363866.aspx

Yeah, I know about Vista's improved support for symbolic
links. However, I think we can let that lay for a while, until we
decide to make Git generate proper symlinks on Vista. I don't see
it as a 1st priority at the moment, and we can always add the
needed functionality in a separate stat() function later.

... and force everybody to upgrade to Vista,

Nonsense.  Supporting a feature is different from requiring a feature.

thereby working for Microsoft for free?  You _know_ that I will
oppose that change.

If Microsoft decides to shoot their users less in the foot than
previously, I don't think that we should take over the gun.

However, if the symbolic link semantics hinted at elsewhere indeed are
as broken as claimed and/or documented, the actual usefulness of
symbolic links seems so limited that we would not be doing their users
a favor by supporting relative symlinks.  And absolute links frankly
have very little place in a _work_ directory (and git does not
currently keep track of enough things in order to make it useful as a
filesystem snapshot system).

I would like to see actual test results to get a confirmation of
whether indeed relative symlinks are as broken under Vista as rumored.
If they are, it seems quite pointless supporting any symlinks under
Windows at the moment.  Until I see actual test results, I would give
Microsoft the benefit of doubt.

-- 
David Kastrup