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There are other problems with symlinks too: http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/symlinks

Every command that operates on files needs an extra flag to tell it whatever it should follow symlinks, or operate on the target, or on the symlink itself, etc.



Only commands capable of doing something meaningful with symlinks need such a flag. These are a minority.


Any program that manipulates or traverses file trees is affected, and a few more, in an OS that is built around the concept of hierarchical file systems, this is quite a few.




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