Disadvatages of "Add Directory" - Harddrives?

[selco]

The possibility to use a Windows directory is really great and very handy.
So what are the disadvantages of "Add Directory" - Harddrives?

-Is it possible to use Amiga-Softlinks?
-Is it possible to use Amiga-Hardlinks?
- Any other things?

regards selco

[Toni Wilen]

Softlinks are sort of implemented (using Windows-side .lnk files. These are supported by nearly all Windows applications so it makes sense)
Hardlinks are not supported.

Amiga links are too weird compared to "normal" non-Amiga system soft/hard links. (Would need separate database file or something to store them)

Does some Amiga program really need hardlinks?

Amiga specific filesystem flags, comments and Windows illegal filenames are supported (and stored to file/dir's alternate data stream)

Everything else should be implemented and supported. Technically it is more or less same as real hardware network file system, it does not run on top of Amiga block device, direct mapping between file size and used/free space is not possible and so on.

It also uses very little Amiga-side memory compared to "normal" Amiga filesystems. (=Always use matching HD controller and filesystem if you want to match real hardware)

[selco]

Ok, thanks for clarification.
Background was as follows:
I wanted to do full backup of an old Amiga, first Harddrives to PFS3-formatted CF-Card, then CF-Card to external PC harddisk. "Add directory-drive" would have been most handy because of easy access to stored files.

On the Amiga I found softlinks and hardlinks. I don't know where both kinds of links came from originally. Most links are in a Geek Gadgets partition.

Copying the CF-card to a PFS3 formatted hardfile seems to work fine.

To be honest I still dit not fully understand the way links work. On Linux the are transparent to an application, on the Amiga I read the application has actively to support them? Would an enhanced DOS-library solve that problem? Or what should I as an a programmer do dow deal with links correctly?

regards selco

[Toni Wilen]

Yes, program needs to support softlinks, when program tries to access (any filesystem operation that takes a path string) soft link, it gets back ERROR_IS_SOFT_LINK and it is program's job to read softlink target (with ACTION_READ_LINK or ReadLink() dos.library function) and construct final path, path which may not be existing path, or even valid path.

Hardlinks don't need any extra support.