>>>>> "JFW" == "John F Woods" <jfw@jfwhome.funhouse.com> writes:

JFW> (Why am I asking?  Someone with a huge filesystem with lots of lookups
JFW> and substantial numbers of symbolic links noted that he could save a
JFW> lot of disk accesses if he could tell by inspecting a symbolic link
JFW> whether it pointed to a directory or a regular file.

Unfortunately, you can't do this reliably--you can tell (perhaps) when
the symlink is manufactured, but later changes in the directory
structure may render the hint in the flags incorrect.  (I say "perhaps"
since the link may point at a nonexistent target when it's created.)

-- 
==John Kohl <jtk@kolvir.arlington.ma.us>, <john_kohl@alum.mit.edu>
See also <http://jtk.ne.mediaone.net/~jtk/>
This signature was created using 100% recycled bits.