OK for apps to break hard links?

FROM : Troy Goodson
DATE : Mon Nov 18 09:02:03 2002

Has anyone else noticed that applications like Apple's TextEdit break
hard links in HFS+ and UFS?

As a newbie to OS X development, I'd like to ask this list for some
guidance.  Should this be OK or not?

If it is not OK, then I'd appreciate it if someone could explain to me
what TextEdit is doing wrong and show me the right way.

To see what I'm talking about, do this:

In Terminal...
1. echo "original text" > hello.txt
2. ln hello.txt hello-link.txt
3. open -a textedit hello.txt
4. (in textedit) change the text "original text" to "altered text"
5. (in textedit) save & close hello.txt
6. (in terminal) cat hello-link.txt

the file hello-link.txt contains "original text" !!