To be honest I'm intrigued myself now whether you are creating hard links or not. It's possible that Dropbox don't allow hard links to avoid recursion but it would be nice to know for sure. I have seen people mention that hard links don't synchronise unless a change is made to them (for example "touch linkname" because while the directory being pointed to shows a change the hard link does not unless the change was made in the hard link directory (difficult to explain, sorry).

Hard links don't allow for recursion - but symlinks do (symlinks are handled differently preventing system problems).

The problem is not knowing how dropbox actually works (it is a proprietary daemon - thus no source code).

If it is using inotify then it is POSSIBLE that hard links are not supported (adding a hard link to a directory within the dropbox tree). If the addition of a name via a hard link is not counted as a "file creation" dropbox may not see it.

Creating the file within the dropbox is recognized - so perhaps adding the hard link separately would be acceptable.

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Okay. I tried a sym link. I'll see later tonight if it syncs to the other computer (in Dropbox) and report back.

Thanks, that makes sense of the ideas I had about what could be happening -- sorry to be derailling the thread a little to talk technicalities.

No, you did a pretty good job explaining! I put a symlink into Dropbox. I'll report back later if it syncs in the other computer.

This is getting over my head but I did add a sym link to Dropbox (as well as another hard link for the heck of it) and will report back when I check the other computer.

So, one of the main differences between sym links and hard links is if I'm working on a file and I accidentally delete it, the sym link is gone too, whereas with a hard link the file is still in tact in the location I put it. Right? (I see hard links as a safeguard.)

The file representing the symlink is still there - that is a separate file and doesn't get deleted, but if you delete the file with data then it is gone - leaving only the symlink.

With the hard link the file data is still intact, but can only be accessed via the other pathname.

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Thanks jpollard. Not sure I entirely understand. I actually experimented. I had a file in my Documents folder and I put a sym link of that file in my Dropbox folder. Then I was working on the file in my Documents folder and deleted it. When I went to my Dropbox folder the file (the sym link) was still there, however it had a little "X" in it and there was no data.

So really what I was saying is the case, then? Delete the source file and if you only have a sym link you're out of luck, right? Yes, the sym link still exists but it contain no data, right?

Thanks

Correct that the original data is gone - The symlink itself still exists and can be used to identify WHERE the file USED to be.

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Excellent, jpollard. Thank you.

Okay. I just tested the softlink and the hardlink files in Dropbox on my home computer and they both synced. I don't know why the hardlink didn't sync before.