[ANNOUNCEMENT]: Important change to symbolic link functionality

[Corinna Vinschen <cygwin at cygwin dot com>]

Hi all,

I want to announce a change to the symlink functionality of Cygwin
which introduces an incompatibility when trying to revert to older
versions of the Cygwin DLL.

Currently symbolic links are files with the content

	!<symlink>filename

where filename is the name the symlink points to. Additionally
the symlinks have the system bit set.

The new version can still read this style of links but it creates
a new style which is compatible to symlinks created by U/WIN.

Symlinks are now Windows shortcuts (*.lnk files). They are created
in a special format which is transparent to Windows Explorer and
U/WIN.

Symlinks/shortcuts created by U/WIN or Cygwin are recognized and
for example listed in `ls' output without the `.lnk' suffix. All
other shortcuts are listed with the .lnk suffix but they are
nevertheless treated as symlinks by Cygwin.

The next version of the Cygwin DLL will have the version number
1.3.0 to make unmistakeably clear that there are changes which
breaks compatibility with older versions in a more serious
manner than before.

I would be glad about testers. Expect errors! However, I'm already
using that DLL on my systems as well so it can't be too bad ;-)

Corinna

-- 
Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Developer                                mailto:cygwin@cygwin.com
Red Hat, Inc.

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