[Geany-devel] Overwriting a link on save as

[Dimitar Zhekov]

On Wed, 02 Mar 2011 00:57:01 +0100
Colomban Wendling <lists.ban at herbesfolles.org> wrote:

> A user (yecril71pl) on #geany reported that saving as a file with the
> name of a symbolic link correctly ask for replacing but will try to
> modify the file at the location pointed by the link rather than
> replacing the link by a new file. This is IMHO at least not expected,

Why should it be unexpected?..

$ echo boza1 > boza1
$ ln -s boza1 boza2
$ echo boza2 > boza2
$ cat boza1
boza2

> and may be problematic if e.g. the target of that link isn't writable,
> since the write will fail (if using unsafe file saving).

chmod -w boza1
Geany File -> Save as -> boza2

"Error opening file '/home/build/boza2': Permission denied
The file on disk may now be truncated!"

> I then suggest to delete the file on "save as" if we see it's a symbolic
> link, so we will create a fresh new file with the proper name.
> 
> Any thoughts?

Just what's the purpose of a link, be it soft or hard, if it does not
behave as a link?.. There is no such category as "link on read, but
non-link on write". If somebody wants to unlink a file, (s)he can do
that with any shell or file manager.

I tried ne, mousepad and scite, and none of them removes symlinks on
Save As. It may be different for gedit, of course.

-- 
E-gards: Jimmy