[Unix][C] Similarities between Unix symlinks and C/C++ pointers/references

Sometimes you want to copy symlink, sometimes you want to 'dereference' symlink.

man cp:

       -L, --dereference
              always follow symbolic links in SOURCE
...
       -P, --no-dereference
              never follow symbolic links in SOURCE

man rsync:

       --links, -l              copy symlinks as symlinks
       --copy-links, -L         transform symlink into referent file/dir

Midnight commander has the 'follow links' option.

You see the difference?

In programming, sometimes it's enough to copy only a pointer to object, sometimes an object itself is to be copied.

Pure C and C++ programmers also use the 'dereference' term, meaning: get an object by pointer.

(the post first published at 20251204.)

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