On my system running Lion (10.7.4), the command sudo chflags -h nohidden /etc
revealed the /etc
folder at the top level of my hard drive.
The -h
flag to chflags
makes it act on a symbolic link rather than on the linked file.
The man
page for chflags
states "Unless the -H or -L options are given, chflags on a symbolic link always succeeds and has no effect." The behavior I observe when I run it is not consistent with this description: I very much do see an effect when I run chflags
on this particular symlink.