[CMake] Re: cmake -E create_symlink for Windows

[Brandon J. Van Every]

Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> The Cygwin cmake has "cmake -E create_symlink".   The Windows native 
> cmake does not.  All the Cygwin implementation actually does is create 
> shortcuts, and Cygwin appears to understand these as symlinks.  Are 
> the notions of "shortcut" and "symlink" sufficiently similar, that 
> it's reasonable to include this capability for Windows in general?  Or 
> is Cygwin simply brighter than Windows is going to be about how to 
> make use of them?
>
> Motive: to work around the libwhatever.dll.a libwhatever.a collision 
> problem in CMake 2.4.3, a symlink would be useful.  I can do this on 
> Cygwin easily enough, but not on MinGW because it uses the Windows 
> native CMake.

On 2nd thought, I've been reading up on symlinks vs. shortcuts and they 
aren't exactly comparable.  MSYS has "ln -s" available but all it does 
is a straight copy, not a symlink or a shortcut.  Meanwhile, plain MinGW 
wouldn't be expected to have "ln" available, that's an MSYS thing.  So 
in sum, I'm thinking it would be useful to have a create_shortcut 
ability for Windows native CMake.  Does that capability exist in some 
other form already?  If not, I'll make a feature request.


Cheers,
Brandon Van Every