Re: parsing the Windows directories

As a general advice, do not be afraid of use perl standard modules distributed and installed on your system. At times you may have non-standard additions on CPAN that will take you all the way, without reinventing the wheel :)

In this case, look into File:: ... modules with extended Windows support. File::Find might even do what you want, with platform support for windows.

As for the problem at hand, windows links; they are not really links according to the POSIX (*nix if you like) way - they are "regular" files containing paths to the original file element.
Sorry though, but I have either the time nor environment to go look for further details on supportive modules for your specific problem :)

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Re^2: parsing the Windows directories by RonW (Parson) on Aug 20, 2014 at 16:35 UTC
As for the problem at hand, windows links; they are not really links according to the POSIX (*nix if you like) way - they are "regular" files containing paths to the original file element. As best I can figure, .lnk files are only treated as links by "Windows Explorer" (and maybe Internet Explorer, not sure). Applications that try to open a .lnk file will end up with a file handle to the contents of the .lnk file, not the file it points to. Therefore, it appears that applications have to be written to recognize .lnk files and handle the redirection themselves (probably there's a library to do this, but I've never "met" it). FYI, Windows Vista and newer do implement actual symbolic links - however, the command that creates symbolic links is very obscure and seems to require administrative privilege to use.	[reply]

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Re^2: parsing the Windows directories
by RonW (Parson) on Aug 20, 2014 at 16:35 UTC

As for the problem at hand, windows links; they are not really links according to the POSIX (*nix if you like) way - they are "regular" files containing paths to the original file element.

As best I can figure, .lnk files are only treated as links by "Windows Explorer" (and maybe Internet Explorer, not sure). Applications that try to open a .lnk file will end up with a file handle to the contents of the .lnk file, not the file it points to. Therefore, it appears that applications have to be written to recognize .lnk files and handle the redirection themselves (probably there's a library to do this, but I've never "met" it).

FYI, Windows Vista and newer do implement actual symbolic links - however, the command that creates symbolic links is very obscure and seems to require administrative privilege to use.

[reply]