Patent ID: 9542403
Date: 2017-01-10
CPC Classifications: G06F

Claim:
1. A computer-implemented method of identifying a symbolic link in a path, comprising: determining, at a network file server, an absolute path having no symbolic links; and traversing, at the network file server, the determined absolute path using a file descriptor of each file in the absolute path to identify a first symbolic link that was inserted in the absolute path after the absolute path was determined, including starting at a root file or directory of the absolute path and sequentially attempting to open each file or directory in the absolute path, wherein opening each file is performed using an open operation with a first parameter that causes the open operation to open a file or directory that is adjacent a most recently returned file descriptor in the absolute path, and a second parameter that causes the open operation to determine whether the adjacent file or directory is a symbolic link, wherein the open operation is a specialized open operation that starts from a directory identified by the first parameter as opposed to a general-purpose open operation that starts from a current working directory.