Re: Use LN_S instead of "ln -s" in Makefile

On Fri, Feb 14, 2020 at 4:57 PM Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:

> Ashwin Agrawal <aagrawal(at)pivotal(dot)io> writes:
> > In general, the variable LN_S is 'ln -s', however, LN_S changes to 'cp
> > -pR' if configure finds the file system does not support symbolic
> > links.
> > I was playing with 'ln' for some other reason where I symbolic linked
> > it to '/bin/false'. That revealed the failure for
> > src/backend/Makefile. Greping for 'ln -s' revealed three places it's
> > used. Attaching the patch to fix the same.
>
> Hm. So, these oversights are certainly bugs in narrow terms. However,
> they've all been like that for a *long* time --- the three instances
> you found date to 2005, 2006, and 2008 according to "git blame".
> The complete lack of complaints shows that nobody cares. So I think
> a fairly strong case could be made for going the other way, ie
> s/$(LN_S)/ln -s/g and get rid of the configure-time cycles wasted in
> setting up that variable.
>

I accede to it.