On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 12:54 PM, John Maddock <boost.regex@virgin.net> wrote:
Thus I'd like to add an option to either following directory symlinks or not. Which should the default be?
*nix follows symlinks by default. One must use special APIs to recognize and inspect symlinks. I should think consistency across platforms would be good.
That isn't really true. There isn't any POSIX function for recursive directory walking. It is simply a matter of whether lstat or stat is used to check whether directory entries are themselves directories. As one example, GNU find does not follow symlinks by default.
And also following symlinks requires special handling to prevent going round and round in circles in the pathological cases.... which is not to say the option of a symlink following API wouldn't be useful.
I'm convinced. In the long run, it is [slightly] safer for the default to not follow directory symlinks. So that will become the default. Thanks to everyone who commented, --Beman