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Reply-To: moss@cs.umass.edu
Subject: Re: Native symbolic link behavior is broken and makes backups using
 Cygwin command line tools impossible
To: "Matt D." <codespunk@gmail.com>
Cc: cygwin@cygwin.com
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From: Eliot Moss <moss@cs.umass.edu>
Message-ID: <b764a832-82c7-b418-530e-8954c540d4f7@cs.umass.edu>
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 2021 11:32:40 -0500
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On 1/4/2021 10:27 AM, Matt D. via Cygwin wrote:
 > I think there is a misunderstanding with how to set up your
 > environment to reproduce my test cases. I did state in the subject
 > "native symbolic links" but I can see that this can be misinterpreted
 > and I should have clarified.
 >
 > I am using symbolic links native to Windows. My CYGWIN environment
 > variable has been set to "winsymlinks:nativestrict" and my account has
 > permission to make symbolic links. This is an issue specifically with
 > Cygwin; I have no problems making links at the windows command line.
 > Cygwin also does not have a problem making symbolic links-- if the
 > target already exists. The issue is that I cannot create native
 > symbolic links with Cygwin for targets that DON'T exist.
 >
 > The normal behavior for both Windows and Linux is to create the
 > symbolic link whether the target exists or not. I don't know why
 > Cygwin fails to do this only for native Windows symbolic links. It
 > does not have a problem creating links to any target with the default
 > Cygwin (non-Windows) symbolic links.

Ok, I see the behavior now that you are talking about.  You can get it with ln
without any need for cp.  With winsymlinks:nativestrict, if I do:

ln -s foo bar

and foo does not exist, it refuses to create the link.  As you found, it also
refuses to cp it.  However, I _was_ able to mv it.

Regards - Eliot