links vs real directories

[John Almberg]

On Mar 16, 2009, at 11:39 AM, Erik Trulsson wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 11:22:13AM -0400, John Almberg wrote:
>> I always thought that links to real directories were pretty much the
>> same as real directories, but I've just discovered a situation where
>> they are not and I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong...
>
> A *soft* link to a directory entry (be it a directory or a file or  
> something
> else) is not quite equivalent to the original entry since they are  
> easily
> distinguished and some programs do treat softlinks differently from  
> other
> targets.

I can see that, now... If I create a soft link to ~/shared/config,  
and then cd into the directory, when I type 'ls ..', I get the  
listing for ~/shared, not ~/app.

Bummer...

I've just dug through man ln, and don't see any obvious solution.  
Since this must be a problem for anyone who wants to do something  
like this, I guess I am taking the wrong approach, altogether.

Will have to re-think this....

<smell of burning rubber commences...>

-- John