Purpose: to discuss the possibility of adding a new 'file link' command to Tcl. (see http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&th=887b11ac0fab6e29&rnum=4 )

Syntax:

(a) '''file link''' source ?target?

or perhaps

(b) '''file link''' ?-hard? source ?target?

(where '-hard' implies use of 'target').

----

On Unix, this is easy with 'symlink' and 'link'.  In fact a small patch is available on sourceforge http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=562970&group_id=10894&atid=310894 to provide (a) on Unix.

On MacOS, links are also supported (often called 'aliases'), but we need a patch like the one above to allow links to be created (i.e. the TclpObjLink function in tclMacFile.c needs completing).

Windows 95/98 etc don't support links very much at all, but Windows 2000/XP using the NTFS filesystem (version 5, I think), do!  See http://www.hlm.inc.ru/ for creating file-links, and http://www.rekenwonder.com/linkmagic.htm , http://windows.oreilly.com/news/win2kcommands_0401.html#linkd , http://www.codeproject.com/w2k/junctionpoints.asp, http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/misc.shtml#junction for directory-links (the last two contain source code to create and query such links).

Anyone want to create drop-in replacements for 'symlink' or 'link' on Windows?  The basic function which is needed is TclpObjLink in tclWinFile.c