[Octave-bug-tracker] [bug #57587] Symlinks are not handeled transparently

[Lars Kindermann]

URL:
  <https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?57587>

                 Summary: Symlinks are not handeled transparently
                 Project: GNU Octave
            Submitted by: larskindermann
            Submitted on: Mon 13 Jan 2020 03:37:42 AM UTC
                Category: Interpreter
                Severity: 3 - Normal
                Priority: 5 - Normal
              Item Group: Other
                  Status: None
             Assigned to: None
         Originator Name: 
        Originator Email: 
             Open/Closed: Open
         Discussion Lock: Any
                 Release: dev
        Operating System: GNU/Linux

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Details:

Symlinks are not handeled transparently in Octave, they are always
dereferenced on entry, both in scripts (cd) and in the GUI.

I'm not sure if this is to be considered a bug, probably it has been discussed
before. But the behaviour is different from all other scripting languages I'm
aware of, including the shells. But I don't know how Matlab behaves.

To demonstrate, create two directories which share a common subdirectory:


mkdir proj1
mkdir proj1/data
mkdir proj2
symlink ../proj1/data proj2/data


An often used script construct like


cd proj1
pwd
cd data
#do stuff
cd ..
pwd


results as expected in


ans = /home/kinder/octave/proj1
ans = /home/kinder/octave/proj1


but doing the same with the symlinked subdir


cd proj2
pwd
cd data
#do stuff
cd ..
pwd


changes the location. The "cd dir; cd .." combination does not return to the
origin:
   

ans = /home/kinder/octave/proj2
ans = /home/kinder/octave/proj1


So scripts may behave differently on normal vs. symlinked directory
structures.





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