[OS X TeX] My ! has disappeared in Times

[Bruno Voisin]

Le 27 avr. 06 à 02:02, Herbert Schulz a écrit :

> You might want to try Symbolic Linker, a Contextual Menu plugin  
> that will create symbolic links. Got to <http:// 
> seiryu.home.comcast.net/symboliclinker.html>.

Thanks for the pointer. I've had a look at it. It seems useful and  
truly Mac-like, allowing to create symlinks without any trip to the  
Terminal.

However, because of the way it works (Ctrl-Click a file or folder to  
create a symbolic link in the same directory, then move this link to  
anywhere on your hard drive), it can only create links containing  
absolute paths, not relative paths. For example, with it the  
following wouldn't be possible:

> drwxrwxrwx   59 brunovoi  staff  2006 Feb 13  2003 Figures
> drwxrwxrwx    8 brunovoi  staff   272 Jun 10  2003 Version 2.0.1
> drwxrwxrwx    6 brunovoi  staff   204 Feb 13  2003 Version 2.0.2
> -rwxrwxrwx    1 brunovoi  staff  4861 Dec 28  1998 macros.tex
>
> ./Version 2.0.1:
> lrwxr-xr-x   1 brunovoi  staff      10 May 14  2003 Figures -> ../ 
> Figures
> lrwxr-xr-x   1 brunovoi  staff      13 May 14  2003 macros.tex - 
> > ../macros.tex
> -rwxrwxrwx   1 brunovoi  staff  131137 Mar  9  1999 pap3v2.tex
>
> ./Version 2.0.2:
> lrwxr-xr-x   1 brunovoi  staff      10 May 14  2003 Figures -> ../ 
> Figures
> lrwxr-xr-x   1 brunovoi  staff      13 May 14  2003 macros.tex - 
> > ../macros.tex
> -rwxrwxrwx   1 brunovoi  staff  131167 Jun 25  1999 pap3v3.tex

Instead, the first symlink above would become, with Symbolic Linker:

> lrwxr-xr-x   1 brunovoi  staff      71 Apr 27 12:11 Figures -> / 
> Users/brunovoisin/Documents/Articles/Article 3/Ébauche 2 (1)/Figures

This makes it impossible, in particular, to move or rename afterwards  
a folder containing symlinks to files within the same folder, in case  
these links have been created with SymbolicLinker.

Some time ago there has been a thread on the dangers of using  
absolute paths in symlinks <http://thread.gmane.org/ 
gmane.comp.tex.macosx/5898/focus=5898>. Quoting Martin Costabel:

> (I learned this from a painful experience where I deleted a 3.5GB / 
> sw_recent directory on an unused FireWire disk I hadn't looked at  
> for a while; turned out this was a symlink to /sw, so in reality I  
> deleted the complete Fink installation on my local Powerbook.)

(the symlink on the FireWire drive pointed to /sw, which referred to  
the /sw directory on the local hard drive).

Bruno Voisin------------------------- Info --------------------------
Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
          & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
TeX FAQ: http://www.tex.ac.uk/faq
List Archive: http://tug.org/pipermail/macostex-archives/