GNU bug report logs - #49335
v.8.32 - stat(1) | Symbolic link interpreted as hard link

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Ricky Tigg <ricky.tigg <at> gmail.com>
To: bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org
Subject: v.8.32 - stat(1) | Symbolic link interpreted as hard link
Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2021 19:32:58 +0300

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Hello, symbolic link counted as hard link. To reproduce:

$ touch t; ln -sr t l; stat -c '%i %h %n %F' t l
4172493 1 t regular empty file
4172494 1 l symbolic link

'%h' reports *1* despite no hard link is involved. Isn't rather *0*
expected?

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #8 received at 49335 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Pádraig Brady <P <at> draigBrady.com>
To: Ricky Tigg <ricky.tigg <at> gmail.com>, 49335 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#49335: v.8.32 - stat(1) | Symbolic link interpreted as hard
 link
Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2021 17:51:47 +0100

tag 49335 notabug
close 49335
stop

On 02/07/2021 17:32, Ricky Tigg wrote:
> Hello, symbolic link counted as hard link. To reproduce:
> 
> $ touch t; ln -sr t l; stat -c '%i %h %n %F' t l
> 4172493 1 t regular empty file
> 4172494 1 l symbolic link
> 
> '%h' reports *1* despite no hard link is involved. Isn't rather *0*
> expected?

1 is expected for any standard file as the names of those files are (hard)linked to an associated inode.
I.e. a hardlink is not a type of file, rather a structure of the file system.
One would only expect 0 for names unlinked from the file system,
which you could demonstrate like:

  f=file.to.delete; touch "$f" && (rm "$f" && stat -L -c '%h' /dev/stdin) < "$f"

The following gives an overview of the various types of links:
https://www.pixelbeat.org/docs/unix_links.html

cheers,
Pádraig

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