<remove> can't remove a dangling symlink

[gerard@…]

The remove handler uses the 'stat' call to remove files and check if the file exists in the first place.

The stat call tries to resolve a symlink. lstat call is identical to stat except it looks at the link itself. From stat(2) man page:

<quote> stat stats the file pointed to by file_name and fills in buf.

lstat is identical to stat, except in the case of a symbolic link, where the link itself is stat-ed, not the file that it refers to. </quote>

The patch as it would apply to 1.1.7 (not checked if it applies to CVS):

diff -Naur nALFS-1.1.7.orig/src/handlers/new-remove.c nALFS-1.1.7/src/handlers/new-remove.c --- nALFS-1.1.7.orig/src/handlers/new-remove.c 2003-02-28 08:28:51.000000000 -0700 +++ nALFS-1.1.7/src/handlers/new-remove.c 2003-05-24 11:45:11.000000000 -0600 @@ -37,7 +37,7 @@

{

struct stat file_stat;

• if (stat(file, &file_stat)) {

+ if (lstat(file, &file_stat)) {

if (errno == ENOENT) {

Nprint_h_warn("File %s doesn't exist.", file); return 0;

370,5-25 Bot

[neven@…]

Check for file existence is removed from the handler.

However, I did replace stat() with lstat() in the code that prints a warning, for syntax version 2.0.