As I understand it, a hardlink is the same as a normal file except that the link count is greater than one. There is therefore no immediately obvious way of distinguishing a hardlink (it's just a pointer, so real size=0) from a file (real size = whatever it is, usually >0).
Is there a simple way of identifying a hardlink in Opus?
Regards, AB
I think every normal NTFS file entry is technically a hardlink. If you create a second hardlink to some data, both hardlinks are "equal" and neither is special or "the real file" compared to the other one.
The OS does let you see a count of how many hardlinks each file has, where it's 1 for most file and will be 2 or more if additional hardlinks have been created. There are shell extensions which will add a column showing that information, but I don't think we have anything built into Opus to show it, unfortunately.
(For other types of links, such as softlinks and junctions, which are indirect pointers to other things, we do provide columns that will identify them as a different Type and show the Targets they point to.)
[quote="leo"]I think every normal NTFS file entry is technically a hardlink. If you create a second hardlink to some data, both hardlinks are "equal" and neither is special or "the real file" compared to the other one.
The OS does let you see a count of how many hardlinks each file has, where it's 1 for most file and will be 2 or more if additional hardlinks have been created. There are shell extensions which will add a column showing that information, but I don't think we have anything built into Opus to show it, unfortunately.[/quote]
Perhaps the developers would consider adding support, assuming that retrieving file link counts would not slow things down. I am currently processing thousands of digital photos using the excellent FastPictureViewer. This application includes built-in support for creating hardlinks to selected images which has the potential to be very useful. It would be even more useful if Opus provided a way of identifying / flagging / highlighting files with a link count greater than 1.
Regards, AB
I wonder why they don't offer the option of softlinks, since they're potentially more useful (they can point across drives, unlike hardlinks). (On the downside, they require admin access to create, so they aren't always a better choice. Makes sense to let people use both.)
This is one of the shell extensions that can add a column showing the number of hardlinks:
schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshel ... llext.html
I don't know if it installs the column handler on Windows 7, since it won't work in Explorer anymore, but if it does install it it will still work in Opus.
[quote="leo"]This is one of the shell extensions that can add a column showing the number of hardlinks:
schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshel ... llext.html
I don't know if it installs the column handler on Windows 7, since it won't work in Explorer anymore, but if it does install it it will still work in Opus.[/quote]
It works perfectly. Once the extension is installed, and after a reboot, the Reference column appears under Other. This is a very useful utility. Thanks for the pointer.
Regards. AB
Something that struck me after activating the reference column is that the value reported is unlikely ever to exceed two digits but the column header - "Reference" - means that the column itself is much wider than required. "Ref" would be sufficient in this case or more generally, a means of aliasing default column headers would be handy.
Regards, AB