error in list-directory when encountering a broken symlink

[epipping]

This happens by default on at least CCL and CMU CL; :follow-symlinks t may thus not be a great default given how common broken symlinks are. Moreover, :follow-symlinks nil only has an effect on SBCL and CCL; there's no way to work around this with CMU CL.

Update: A similar issue in OSICAT is discussed here: osicat/osicat#15

[hanshuebner]

I can suggest two things: Either you fix your file system so that it does not contain broken symbolic links, or use a lower-level library like IOlib to be able to deal with abnormal situation in a Linux file system more gracefully. We're not going to change the default for :follow-symlinks as that'd break existing applications. If you want to propose a different fix for the issue please submit a pull request.