[Pkg-sysvinit-devel] Bug#626263: Clarification of §10.5 symlink wording needed

[Russ Allbery]

Roger Leigh <rleigh at codelibre.net> writes:

> Section 10.5 states:

>      In general, symbolic links within a top-level directory should be
>      relative, and symbolic links pointing from one top-level directory
>      into another should be absolute.  (A top-level directory is a
>      sub-directory of the root directory `/'.)

> It's not obvious from the wording whether "symbolic links within"
> is referring to the symbolic link file itself (source) or destination
> contained within the link.  Which is the case?
> Some rationale for these requirements would also be useful.

By "within" it means that both the source and the target are beneath the
same top-level directory.  So a symlink from a file in /usr to another
file in /usr (even if one is in /usr/lib/foo and the other is in
/usr/share/bar) would be relative, by default.

> This is related to #626263.
> With the creation of /run we are making /var/run a symlink to /run
> (and /var/lock a symlink to /run/lock).  The question is whether
> these links should be absolute or relative.  i.e. should /var/run
> point to /run or ../run?

It should be absolute: /var is a different top-level directory than /run.

Suggestions on rewording are definitely welcome.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra at debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>