os.link & NTFS 5

[Christian Tismer]

Irmen de Jong wrote:
> Martin v. Löwis wrote:
> 
>> Alas, a single binary needs to support all Windows versions, that's 
>> why CreateHardLink cannot be used.
> 
> 
> If I'm not mistaken, (hard)links in the filesystem level are only supported
> on NTFS 5 (windows 2000/xp). Even Windows NT 4 doesn't support them, let
> alone the non-NT windows versions.
> 
> So, why could the single binary not check the OS version and either call
> the CreateHardLink system call if it's supported, and throw an error when
> it isn't?

Well, I would add it to the win32 extensions, or write
another extensions with special versions for certain
functions like hard links. The os module could try
to import such a module and decide to support the
function or to declare it absent.
The function would simply disappear for son-supported
Windows versions, the same way as the function is
missing completely right now.

I don't think it is too hard to write such an extension,
with MHammonds Win32 extensions as a template.
It was just never urgent for to have hard links, and
basically I find them confusing on Unix. This was
probably also part of the reasons why softlinks are
the preferred way today. So, really working soft links
for Windows would be what I like.

But if anybody can explain to me why it is urgent to
have hard links under Windows, I might write such a
module. This could be easily implanted via site.py
and would not mean a change to the Python core.

ciao - chris

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