[m-rev.] for review: make mmc --make not symlink target file unnecessarily

[Simon Taylor]

On 12-Apr-2007, Peter Ross <pro at missioncriticalit.com> wrote:
> On 4/11/07, Peter Wang <wangp at students.csse.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> >Branches: main
> >
> >When using mmc --make --use-grade-subdirs, don't make a symlink or copy of
> >the target file to the user directory if the file in the user directory is
> >already up to date.  This avoids bumping the timestamp unnecessarily.
> >
> Is there a reason why we don't use hard-links instead of symlinks?
> 
> The only reason I can think of is that the sub-directory resides on a
> different file system.
> 
> The advantage of hard-links is that they are quicker and are supported
> under both windows and unix.

I think the main problem is that you also have to be very careful when
updating a file that you are really updating it and not just linking one
of the hard links to a different file.  You also need to be more careful
that you have deleted all the links when cleaning up.

Simon.
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