Windows SymLink Questions: How do I tell if a file is symlinked /

Question

I'm not exactely sure how to phrase my questions, I'll describe what I'm doing, perhaps my misconceptions will show.

I'm on windows 7. I symlinked files that I'm working on in a project to a sandbox directory. I believe I did this using the msys ln.exe tool. I did something like ln -t sandbox other; ln -t sandbox core ... and so on. I remember that I did forget to symlink a directory and I had to go back and redo one, I might have used mklink that time.

First Issue: When I update one file, UIManager.py the changes don't seem to propagate to the real UIManager.py file. So, I think I may have accidentally just copied this file, did something weird with mklink instead of ln.exe, or somehow the symlink was broken.

Second Issue: When I change things to a file ConcretePrintable.py, the changes propagate, but I have to reload the file. (:e ConcretePrintable.py in gvim) Why is that?

Answer 1

MSYS doesn't actually support symlinks. It just creates a copy when asked to create a symlink.

Not sure what you're asking in the second issue. Do you expect it to reload automatically, or to be notified? I'd guess if the change does become visible on a reload, you did create a real symlink using mklink. Maybe symlinks aren't transparent to whatever file change notification system gvim is using though.