Re: awk inplace overrides symlinks

[Andrew J. Schorr]

On Fri, Feb 09, 2024 at 05:21:05AM +0000, Avid Seeker wrote:
> On Friday, February 9th, 2024 at 02:16, Andrew J. Schorr 
> <aschorr@telemetry-investments.com> wrote:
> 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > On Fri, Feb 09, 2024 at 12:28:54AM +0000, Avid Seeker wrote:
> > 
> > > `touch file ln -s file link awk -i inplace '{print "newline"}' link`
> > > 
> > > Results in replacing `link` with a regular file.
> > 
> > 
> > Thanks for the bug report. The code currently calls stat() to check whether
> > it's working on a regular file, and craps out if it isn't. So arguably we
> > should be using lstat() and failing in this case instead of stomping on the
> > symlink. Or do you expect the code to chase the link and replace the symlink
> > destination file? I think the latter is probably too much to ask...
> > 
> > Regards,
> > Andy
> 
> It's more expected for the program edits the original file. Consider how
> editors like emacs don't complain when editing a symlink. In the end, the
> symlink chasing is done by `readlink` function.

It could be a recursive symlink, so we'd actually need to use
realpath, not readlink. But it's not quite clear to me that this
behavior is within the scope of what the inplace extension is
supposed to do. One could debate it...

Regards,
Andy