Ignoring "junctions" when synchronizing

commodore · Post by *commodore » 2006-01-09, 21:57 UTC

It was a great day when I discovered that I can do hardlinks, symlinks etc. in Windows 2000. It made organizing directories on my computer so much easier. However, hell breaks loose when I want to synchronize two drives (the second one being a backup copy of the first one) because the system will want to also copy anything that's in "mounted" directories as well (since the target drive is not NTFS and doesn't contain identical mountings).

Is there any way to make Total Commander ignore junctions when it encounters them while synchronizing? Or perhaps a suggestion: in addition to "subdirs" option with synchronization feature, there could also be an option to "ignore junctions" so the system won't copy the contents in every mounted directory it encounters. Feasible?

Balderstrom · Post by *Balderstrom » 2006-01-09, 23:37 UTC

More fun to be had if you copy & paste or drag a directory that contains a junction to another location, instead of duplicating the junction - TC makes a normal directory and starts to copy all the contents.

Was discussed in another thread a while back, TC does a few bad things when handling junctions.

Would be nice if 6.54 or 7.0 gets a Config\ Copy/Paste \ "Traverse Junctions" checkbox for File Operation purposes (Copy/Paste/Delete/Synchronize, etc)

Floyd42 · Post by *Floyd42 » 2006-01-15, 12:30 UTC

HI,

On Linux, the MidnightCommander has such a function. Having the same in in TC would really be of help. Please implement it.

Post by *ghisler(Author) » 2006-01-15, 20:30 UTC

More fun to be had if you copy & paste or drag a directory that contains a junction to another location, instead of duplicating the junction - TC makes a normal directory and starts to copy all the contents.

This is not a bug, it's intentional! Imagine that someone is making a backup of a directory containing a few junctions to an external USB harddisk. Should TC really just create some junctions on the disk to the directories on your harddisk?

commodore · Post by *commodore » 2006-01-15, 20:53 UTC

This is not a bug, it's intentional! Imagine that someone is making a backup of a directory containing a few junctions to an external USB harddisk. Should TC really just create some junctions on the disk to the directories on your harddisk?

I believe it should be an option for the user to choose. For instance: In the case you're mentioning, TC should copy the contents. But there's another possibility -- that the user is using junctions for organizing reasons; and in this case TC shouldn't copy everything in the backup procedure because it would only multiply the same data.

sqa_wizard · Post by *sqa_wizard » 2006-01-15, 21:40 UTC

I believe it should be an option for the user to choose.

Support ++

Imagine you want to move some items ( incl. junctions ) just into a new subfolder ... no way yet (without losing junctions)

Balderstrom · Post by *Balderstrom » 2006-01-16, 13:48 UTC

In the best of both worlds, given the option to toggle between "traverse junctions" and not. A further implementation of an editable list popup with the directory/junctions that were only copied would be optimum - in case you meant to backup or copy the files.

I've also noticed explorer properly shows drives that have been mounted to a directory as a drive icon, instead of a shortcut link.

Balderstrom · Post by *Balderstrom » 2006-02-03, 17:15 UTC

Heres another example of where problems arise from having no control over whether TC parses junctions or not.

When using Junctions for organizational purposes - and then checking on diskspace with cm_CountDirContent

The values returned are completely bogus. In one case, as an example, a directory listed as being over 2 Gigs only actually contained 1.2

With a few strategic junctions the directory end sizes can easily exceed the actual drive size.

Lefteous · Post by *Lefteous » 2006-02-03, 17:22 UTC

2Balderstrom
You could use my content plug-in DirSizeCalc instead. Many fields support an option to follow junctions or not. Check the documentation or ask in the support thread if you need assistance.

OliverPA · Post by *OliverPA » 2006-02-04, 07:24 UTC

Instead of a choice made within TCs configuration dialogs which would define it's behaviour for all file operations, I'd much rather have TC open a dialog box while moving/copying files as soon as a junction or hardlink is found, asking whether it ought to be copied/moved or the linked structure be kept. That way you could choose depending on the files you're copying right now...