Windows symlinks

[dlangBugzillaToGithub]

srpen6 reported this on 2020-07-04T01:12:49Z

Transfered from https://issues.dlang.org/show_bug.cgi?id=21010

CC List

• starcanopy

Description

Windows symlinks

It seems currently D cannot create Symlinks on Windows:

https://dlang.org/library/std/file/symlink.html

but I dont really see a good reason why this is the case. Plenty of other
languages offer this, such as Go:

https://golang.org/pkg/os#Symlink

Nim:

https://nim-lang.org/docs/os.html#createSymlink,string,string

PHP:

https://php.net/function.symlink

Python:

https://docs.python.org/library/os#os.symlink

Dart:

https://api.dart.dev/dart-io/Link/create.html

[dlangBugzillaToGithub]

starcanopy commented on 2020-10-12T13:32:23Z

I'll look into it.

[dlangBugzillaToGithub]

starcanopy commented on 2020-10-12T17:15:06Z

Adding Windows support to std.file.symlink is mostly done. I just need to get some clarification about some stuff.
For std.file.readLink, druntime is missing a conversion of Fileapi.h, and this is the header that declares the function to retrieve the target's path, GetFinalPathNameByHandle[A|W]. For this issue's resolution, I feel that both readLink and symlink need to be simultaneously added.

[dlangBugzillaToGithub]

starcanopy commented on 2020-11-07T01:23:45Z

A potential blocker for this issue's resolution is that Windows (10) necessitates enabling Developer Mode to utilize symlinks. Thus, unless the CIs' Windows hosts may and might be configured to do this, then the Windows' version of `symlink` cannot have a unittest. If that's not acceptable, then this issue should be closed, and the documentation of symlink should inform users of `core.sys.windows.symlink`'s presence. (As of now, the docs merely specify that only POSIX is supported, and I think mentioning that directly utilizing the WinAPI is easy.)
The other pertinent function, `readLink`, is also affected.

[dlangBugzillaToGithub]

starcanopy commented on 2020-11-07T01:37:25Z

After more thinking, and thanks to another individual, for the unittests to properly function on all supported versions of Windows, administrative rights must be conferred. (Developer Mode is an exclusive feature of Windows 10.) Whether this is possible or prudent, I do no know.