On Mar  4 14:48, Paul Gilmartin wrote:
> On Windows 7, Cygwin 1.7.28(0.271/5/3), the script:
> 
> 603 $ cat badsyml
> # #######################################################
> #! /bin/sh -x
> 
> uname -a
> 
> mkdir -p wombat/foo1/foo2
> cd wombat
> ln -s foo1/foo2 .
> date >foo1/xyzzy
> 
> find . -ls
> cat   foo2/../xyzzy
> # #######################################################
> 
> Fails with:
> # #######################################################
> 604 $ rm -r wombat
> 605 $ ./badsyml
> badsyml 3+ uname -a
> CYGWIN_NT-6.1-WOW64 PGILMART-US 1.7.28(0.271/5/3) 2014-02-04 16:18 i686 Cygwin
> badsyml 5+ mkdir -p wombat/foo1/foo2
> badsyml 6+ cd wombat
> badsyml 7+ ln -s foo1/foo2 .
> badsyml 8+ date
> badsyml 10+ find . -ls
> 33495522228574359    0 drwxr-xr-x   1 PGILMART None            0 Mar  3 11:22 .
> 104427216359660155    0 drwxr-xr-x   1 PGILMART None            0 Mar  3 11:22 ./foo1
> 310185424335151883    0 drwxr-xr-x   1 PGILMART None            0 Mar  3 11:22 ./foo1/foo2
> 90916417477552943    1 -rw-r--r--   1 PGILMART None           27 Mar  3 11:22 ./foo1/xyzzy
> 12103423998567573    1 lrwxrwxrwx   1 PGILMART None            9 Mar  3 11:22 ./foo2 -> foo1/foo2
> badsyml 11+ cat foo2/../xyzzy
> cat: foo2/../xyzzy: No such file or directory
> 606 $
> # #######################################################
> 
> I believe, rather, that the PWD environment variable is a
> feature of the POSIX shell (implemented by bash) and should
> not affect the operation of utilities such as "cat" or the
> underlying system calls.  The symbolic link to ".." (parent
> directory) should be resolved, not relative to the logical
> path that reached it, but to the directory physically containing
> it, as Linux, Solaris, z/OS, and OS X do:

This is a known problem and nothing we can easily change without a
complete rewrite of the core path handling code.  We described this in
great length on this list already, so, please search the archives.  But,
basically, the code is performing a few non-POSIXy shortcuts to speed up
path conversion from POSIX to Windows paths, mainly:

- checking the path backwards rather than forward as mandated by POSIX,

- and folding ".." path components from the path before checking the
  parent path component for being a symlink.


Corinna

-- 
Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Maintainer                 cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Red Hat