What is the use of COPY --link in that context?

[hasB4K]

Hello,

I'm unsure about the use of COPY --link in that situation. What is the benefit of it? When I tried with or without it when using FROM scratch I did not saw any difference on a large docker image. At first I thought that --link was just an argument to preserve symlinks, then I read that it was actually trying to use hardlinks from the previous layers to avoid duplicating too much. But the previous layer needs stay in the history of the image no? Which I think can never be the case during a squash? So it feels that it will simply do nothing in the end? Or maybe I'm wrong?

Anyway, many thanks for your project. It follows a "keep it simple" philosophy, and it's super useful. You did something that docker should have implemented years ago. Thank you!!

Kind regards,