RE: mkdir when target exists and is a broken symlink

[Avis, Ed]

Eric Blake wrote:

>>There could be some kind of -f, --follow option so that mkdir will
>>create the directory pointed to.  You'd probably use it together with
>>-p.

>This sounds somewhat similar to cp -f, --force.  cp uses 
>slightly different semantics, required by POSIX (rather than 
>try to create the new file at the location specified by the 
>dangling symlink, it unlinks the symlink and creates the new 
>file in its place).  I would lean more toward force semantics 
>than follow semantics if `mkdir -fp' were supported.

But forcing can be done with

% rm -f x && mkdir x

while I don't see any obvious way to get the following semantics with
ordinary Unix commands.

>In particular, how would follow semantics behave with `mkdir -fp
>circular'?

Surely the same way as 'cat circular', that is, an error.

[interesting discussion about touch snipped]

-- 
Ed Avis <address@hidden>