Calling ghc without -o overwrites symbolic links

This might not be a bug (might even be a feature...) but I find it strange:

When you call ghc name.hs, after compiling your .hs .o:

• if you don't have a file "name", it creates the executable "name"

• if you have a folder or a file called "name", it does nothing

• if you have a symbolic link called "name", it is erased and replaced by the executable "name"

This last one behavior is (not entirely) surprising. It sure is a good idea to provide a -o, but while dirty hacking a test.hs while I had a symlink to some test directory, it happened to me. Maybe for some reason we want this to happen.

Steps to reproduce:

$ echo "FOO" > linked
$ ln -s linked link
$ echo "main = return ()" > link.hs
$ ls -lh link
lrwxrwxrwx 1 varobert 21134 6 Feb  6 14:25 link -> linked
$ cat link
FOO
$ ghc link.hs
[1 of 1] Compiling Main             ( link.hs, link.o )
Linking link ...
$ ls -lh link
-rwxr-xr-x 1 varobert 21134 930K Feb  6 14:26 link

I'm not cat-ing link again but you get it.

Trac metadata

Trac field	Value
Version	7.0.3
Type	Bug
TypeOfFailure	OtherFailure
Priority	normal
Resolution	Unresolved
Component	Compiler
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