[petsc-dev] damn symlinks on windows

[Aron Ahmadia]

I don't understand why you guys create a symbolic link to the
configure.log in the base directory.  This has always confused me, and
I'm pretty sure I've accidentally sent a symbolic link or two from OS
X at one point or another.  I think you should gzip and cp the
configure.log over as part of a successful install, and leave it
sitting in the main directory otherwise.  Advanced users may want to
have the ability to have configure.log generated elsewhere (and you
could make this a configure argument if you really felt like it), but
the symbolic links are both unexpected and confusing to beginners.

On Wed, Oct 9, 2013 at 1:05 AM, Chetan Jhurani <chetan.jhurani at gmail.com> wrote:
> mklink on NTFS does it the right way - no .lnk business
> or cygwin specific file format.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_symbolic_link
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: petsc-dev-bounces at mcs.anl.gov [mailto:petsc-dev-bounces at mcs.anl.gov] On Behalf Of Satish Balay
>> Sent: Tuesday, October 08, 2013 8:53 PM
>> To: Barry Smith
>> Cc: For users of the development version of PETSc
>> Subject: Re: [petsc-dev] damn symlinks on windows
>>
>> On Tue, 8 Oct 2013, Barry Smith wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >   Is there any solution to the problem of windows users always mailing symlinks instead of actual
>> files? Is it a cygwin problem?
>>
>> http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/using-effectively.html#using-shortcuts
>>
>> I guess one can create MS-links - but 'less configure.log.lnk' is
>> useless on it . And I don't know if any of these e-mailers would
>> resolve MS-link and attach the actual file - or just attach the dummy
>> link file..
>>
>> Alterantives:
>>
>> - do not create links on windows. [but now our instructions are either inconsistant or too
>> complicated]
>>
>> - do not use links anywhere :(
>>
>> Satish
>