[CLUE-Tech] Symlink oddity

[Matt Gushee]

I just discovered that bash (or maybe it's ls and mv) has some peculiar
behavior WRT to symlinked directories.

I downloaded a file called popy-2.0.7.tar.gz (it's a PostgreSQL interface 
for Python) to /usr/local/share, when I actually wanted it in
/usr/local/src. On my system, by the way:

  bash-2.03$ file /usr/local      
  /usr/local: symbolic link to /opt/usr.local
  
and

  bash-2.03$ file /usr/local/src
  /usr/local/src: symbolic link to /.devel/usr.local.src
  
[okay, my partitioning scheme is a little odd, but I have my reasons]

So I do this:

  bash-2.03$ cd /usr/local/src
  bash-2.03$ mv ../sh [TAB] -->
             mv ../share
             mv ../share/po [TAB] -->
             mv ../share/popy-2.0.7.tar.gz .

and get:

  mv: ../share/popy-2.0.7.tar.gz: No such file or directory

Well, that's understandable, since there isn't a /.devel/share
directory. And if I try to do

  $ ls ../share

it fails in a similar fashion.  Why, then, does ../share/, etc. appear
through tab completion? Is this a bug in bash, or is it intentional? If
it's intentional, what good is it to be able to do tab completion on
paths that don't actually exist?
  
Inquiring minds want 2 no ...
-- 
Matt Gushee
Englewood, Colorado, USA
mgushee at havenrock.com
http://www.havenrock.com/