[m-dev.] proposed additions: file copying in stdlib and compiler

[Julien Fischer]

On Fri, 10 Nov 2023, Zoltan Somogyi wrote:

> On 2023-11-10 23:20 +11:00 AEDT, "Julien Fischer" <jfischer at opturion.com> wrote:
>> Windows has "supported" symlinks since Vista; however until Windows 11
>> you could only use them as an administrator, not in user mode (for some
>> bloody reason).
>>
>> The compiler already lets you select whether it will use symlinks
>> or copy files using the --use-symlinks configuration option.
>> (What's lacking is any support for sylinks in the standard library
>> when on Windows.)
>
> I presume this means that you want to
>
> - implement symlink operations that work only on win11
> - add a new pred that succeeds iff you are running on win11
> - make the symlink ops return on error if you are on windows
>  but not on win11

The will work on older versions in administrator mode (or, apparently, if
you've enabled some flag somewhere), so they are of limited use.

> - have autoconf set --use-symlinks to "yes" on win11, but "no"
>  on other versions of windows.
>
> Have I got that right?

Yes.  (I'm not planning to do this anytime soon since my machine
still uses Windows 10.)

Julien.