OPEN, STATUS='NEW' of a symbolic link to a non-existing file.

[Steve Kargl]

On Wed, Sep 16, 2009 at 07:49:25PM +0100, N.M. Maclaren wrote:
> On Sep 16 2009, Steve Kargl wrote:
> >
> >As you know, the unix philosophy is that everything is a file.
> >symlinks (and directories and devices and ...) may by special
> >files, but nonetheless they are files.
> 
> Er, not really.
> 

Er, yes really.

  "The most important role of the system is to provide a file
   system.  From the point of view of the user, there are three
   kinds of files:  ordinary disk files, directories, and special
   files."

   DM Ritchie and K Thompson, "The UNIX Time-Sharing System,"
   The Bell System Technical Journal, Vol 57(6), 1905-1931 (1978).

-- 
Steve