Hard Links

[Alan Bateman]

Scott Palmer wrote:
> :
> What about for Windows?  It seems that the JRE should abstract this, if possible, so I don't need OS specific bits in my code unless absolutely necessary. It is odd to have this implementation-specific and OS-specific thing when the decision to support hard links was already made with the addition of the createLink API.  I assume since the early docs referenced a linkCount() API that there was a conscious decision to remove it, I'm curious about the reasons for that. Or maybe it was just something that accidentally got lost when the API was juggled around and FileRef went away?
>
> Is there are reason this isn't part of the "basic" view?
>
>   
The link count is something that we would expect only very few 
applications will likely need. Off-hand I don't recall anyone asking for 
it. We did have it in an early prototype but it isn't really feasible 
everywhere, particularly with custom file systems. On Windows then it 
would impact performance if it were defined by BasicFileAttributes 
(based on various measurements that we did on the various win32 calls 
for accessing file attributes). So for now none of the file attribute 
views defined by the API define the link count. The API is extensible so 
that providers can define their own view of the attributes and in our 
provider then the only view that currently supports it in the "unix" view.

-Alan.