GNU bug report logs - #15729
"make distclean", "./bootstrap", symlinks, and absolute pathnames

Message received at 15729 <at> debbugs.gnu.org:

Received: (at 15729) by debbugs.gnu.org; 28 Oct 2013 22:38:59 +0000
From debbugs-submit-bounces <at> debbugs.gnu.org Mon Oct 28 18:38:59 2013
Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:50042 helo=debbugs.gnu.org)
	by debbugs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.80)
	(envelope-from <debbugs-submit-bounces <at> debbugs.gnu.org>)
	id 1VavSc-0008Dv-RX
	for submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org; Mon, 28 Oct 2013 18:38:59 -0400
Received: from mail-pa0-f45.google.com ([209.85.220.45]:33393)
 by debbugs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.80)
 (envelope-from <meyering@HIDDEN>) id 1VavSZ-0008Dh-Td
 for 15729 <at> debbugs.gnu.org; Mon, 28 Oct 2013 18:38:56 -0400
Received: by mail-pa0-f45.google.com with SMTP id kp14so7568884pab.4
 for <15729 <at> debbugs.gnu.org>; Mon, 28 Oct 2013 15:38:50 -0700 (PDT)
DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113;
 h=mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:from:date:message-id
 :subject:to:cc:content-type;
 bh=ZGOQSl5g6eoBKvZXOzkyBrM1cx/DMuNYu/Whjmrc0l4=;
 b=jytiugU7/PnMreRh6YCUN26sOjrNNZb+Jv24v4DpjwwGD6kTm1dd/Cv6kWVrUFoAEs
 0c7VMd6rRIURH22oSZYseKhd7qn9esmlRmIq+aYKy+ujMBfl5Q47Y0wGbaFCdJFkyowV
 sSZx13jyPeOsZovFuAuLQFmE7bvxdlEDTok63wt9a3SG2a99Z/zH18/gwK0lRA40QyeZ
 Q3n52fFE14RcSSMnbfKfGNqJ7APHw/oI63Y7fHnMM3vVVFEcYP6XgvzXTPrjgwDaPWqT
 +yHh8Xi4eZZh18LFhwWhkWyq5TI+aHJva8vtStmLoALWVpxsxtt9OCW8FLyvobj73+/a
 am6g==
X-Received: by 10.68.220.36 with SMTP id pt4mr802534pbc.30.1382999929950; Mon,
 28 Oct 2013 15:38:49 -0700 (PDT)
MIME-Version: 1.0
Received: by 10.68.6.66 with HTTP; Mon, 28 Oct 2013 15:38:28 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <526C9593.2050400@HIDDEN>
References: <526C9593.2050400@HIDDEN>
From: Jim Meyering <jim@HIDDEN>
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2013 15:38:28 -0700
X-Google-Sender-Auth: jw5qyV2KvJfZRfH3PfWI1yid2Ws
Message-ID: <CA+8g5KGv5r0odEh1ZYNtFM34zEQ+KT0Kf9=mV7y8k2Cms+61Eg@HIDDEN>
Subject: Re: bug#15729: "make distclean", "./bootstrap", symlinks, and
 absolute pathnames
To: behoffski <behoffski@HIDDEN>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
X-Spam-Score: -0.7 (/)
X-Debbugs-Envelope-To: 15729
Cc: 15729 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
X-BeenThere: debbugs-submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.15
Precedence: list
List-Id: <debbugs-submit.debbugs.gnu.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi-bin/mailman/options/debbugs-submit>, 
 <mailto:debbugs-submit-request <at> debbugs.gnu.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/debbugs-submit/>
List-Post: <mailto:debbugs-submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org>
List-Help: <mailto:debbugs-submit-request <at> debbugs.gnu.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/debbugs-submit>, 
 <mailto:debbugs-submit-request <at> debbugs.gnu.org?subject=subscribe>
Errors-To: debbugs-submit-bounces <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Sender: "Debbugs-submit" <debbugs-submit-bounces <at> debbugs.gnu.org>
X-Spam-Score: -0.7 (/)

On Sat, Oct 26, 2013 at 9:24 PM, behoffski <behoffski@HIDDEN> wrote:
> G'day,
>
> I use "make distclean" regularly, before updating the sources from the Git
> master and rebuilding.  I've been maintaining the sources in the top-level
> directory "/home/grep-2.14/grep".
>
> With the release of 2.15.1, I decided to rename the top-level directory
> in-place to "/home/grep-2.15.1/grep".  This broke a number of things,
> because
> there are quite a number of symlinks created during the bootstrap operation,
> and almost all of these symlinks use an absolute path, rather than a
> relative
> one.  (A sample of the links, created after re-running ./bootstrap, is
> included below.)
>
> I suspect that the bug is in my expectations:  Tree renaming (and/or similar
> operations, such as cloning) is not supported by the sources once
> "./bootstrap" has been executed.
>
> I believe that a policy of changing all symlinks to use relative pathnames
> would be developer-friendly.

I agree.  It would be nice to fix this.
I took a quick look and saw that the offending symlinks are created
via gnulib-tool.
I am not terribly motivated to fix it right now.  Anyone else care to
take a crack at it?

Message received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org:

Received: (at submit) by debbugs.gnu.org; 27 Oct 2013 04:25:25 +0000
From debbugs-submit-bounces <at> debbugs.gnu.org Sun Oct 27 00:25:25 2013
Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:46876 helo=debbugs.gnu.org)
	by debbugs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.80)
	(envelope-from <debbugs-submit-bounces <at> debbugs.gnu.org>)
	id 1VaHul-00036M-Sb
	for submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org; Sun, 27 Oct 2013 00:25:24 -0400
Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:42448)
 by debbugs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.80)
 (envelope-from <behoffski@HIDDEN>) id 1VaHui-000361-FD
 for submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org; Sun, 27 Oct 2013 00:25:21 -0400
Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71)
 (envelope-from <behoffski@HIDDEN>) id 1VaHuc-0002nS-5s
 for submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org; Sun, 27 Oct 2013 00:25:15 -0400
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.3.2 (2011-06-06) on eggs.gnu.org
X-Spam-Level: 
X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.8 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_50 autolearn=disabled
 version=3.3.2
Received: from lists.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::11]:34877)
 by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71)
 (envelope-from <behoffski@HIDDEN>) id 1VaHuc-0002nH-21
 for submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org; Sun, 27 Oct 2013 00:25:14 -0400
Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:44168)
 by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71)
 (envelope-from <behoffski@HIDDEN>) id 1VaHua-0008Dt-U7
 for bug-grep@HIDDEN; Sun, 27 Oct 2013 00:25:13 -0400
Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71)
 (envelope-from <behoffski@HIDDEN>) id 1VaHuZ-0002hd-DH
 for bug-grep@HIDDEN; Sun, 27 Oct 2013 00:25:12 -0400
Received: from ipmail04.adl6.internode.on.net
 ([2001:44b8:8060:ff02:300:1:6:4]:47766)
 by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71)
 (envelope-from <behoffski@HIDDEN>) id 1VaHuZ-0002Nx-1H
 for bug-grep@HIDDEN; Sun, 27 Oct 2013 00:25:11 -0400
Received: from ppp118-210-206-10.lns20.adl6.internode.on.net (HELO
 [192.168.1.3]) ([118.210.206.10])
 by ipmail04.adl6.internode.on.net with ESMTP; 27 Oct 2013 14:54:54 +1030
Message-ID: <526C9593.2050400@HIDDEN>
Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 14:54:51 +1030
From: behoffski <behoffski@HIDDEN>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64;
 rv:17.0) Gecko/20130911 Thunderbird/17.0.9
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: bug-grep@HIDDEN
Subject: "make distclean", "./bootstrap", symlinks, and absolute pathnames
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not
 recognized.
X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Error: Malformed IPv6 address
 (bad octet value).
X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::11
X-Spam-Score: -5.0 (-----)
X-Debbugs-Envelope-To: submit
X-BeenThere: debbugs-submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.15
Precedence: list
List-Id: <debbugs-submit.debbugs.gnu.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi-bin/mailman/options/debbugs-submit>, 
 <mailto:debbugs-submit-request <at> debbugs.gnu.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/debbugs-submit/>
List-Post: <mailto:debbugs-submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org>
List-Help: <mailto:debbugs-submit-request <at> debbugs.gnu.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/debbugs-submit>, 
 <mailto:debbugs-submit-request <at> debbugs.gnu.org?subject=subscribe>
Errors-To: debbugs-submit-bounces <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Sender: "Debbugs-submit" <debbugs-submit-bounces <at> debbugs.gnu.org>
X-Spam-Score: -5.0 (-----)

G'day,

I use "make distclean" regularly, before updating the sources from the Git
master and rebuilding.  I've been maintaining the sources in the top-level
directory "/home/grep-2.14/grep".

With the release of 2.15.1, I decided to rename the top-level directory
in-place to "/home/grep-2.15.1/grep".  This broke a number of things, because
there are quite a number of symlinks created during the bootstrap operation,
and almost all of these symlinks use an absolute path, rather than a relative
one.  (A sample of the links, created after re-running ./bootstrap, is
included below.)

I suspect that the bug is in my expectations:  Tree renaming (and/or similar
operations, such as cloning) is not supported by the sources once
"./bootstrap" has been executed.

I believe that a policy of changing all symlinks to use relative pathnames
would be developer-friendly.

I didn't see anything that could point to a defect in the 2.15.1 release,
but my knowledge of the overall sources (especially gnulib) is quite shallow.

cheers,

behoffski (Brenton Hoff)
Programmer, Grouse Software

--------------------------

# Sample of absolute-path symlinks visible after executing ./bootstrap:

./GNUmakefile -> /home/grep-2.15.1/grep/gnulib/top/GNUmakefile
./doc/gendocs_template -> /home/grep-2.15.1/grep/gnulib/doc/gendocs_template
./gnulib-tests/test-fcntl-safer.c -> /home/grep-2.15.1/grep/gnulib/tests/test-fcntl-safer.c
./gnulib-tests/signature.h -> /home/grep-2.15.1/grep/gnulib/tests/signature.h
./gnulib-tests/test-stdlib.c -> /home/grep-2.15.1/grep/gnulib/tests/test-stdlib.c
./gnulib-tests/test-wcrtomb-w32-1.sh -> /home/grep-2.15.1/grep/gnulib/tests/test-wcrtomb-w32-1.sh
         # ... many more gnulib-tests links...
./m4/fstat.m4 -> /home/grep-2.15.1/grep/gnulib/m4/fstat.m4
./m4/localcharset.m4 -> /home/grep-2.15.1/grep/gnulib/m4/localcharset.m4
./m4/quote.m4 -> /home/grep-2.15.1/grep/gnulib/m4/quote.m4
./m4/isnanf.m4 -> /home/grep-2.15.1/grep/gnulib/m4/isnanf.m4
./m4/xsize.m4 -> /home/grep-2.15.1/grep/gnulib/m4/xsize.m4
         # many more m4 links...
./lib/mbsrtowcs-impl.h -> /home/grep-2.15.1/grep/gnulib/lib/mbsrtowcs-impl.h
./lib/stpcpy.c -> /home/grep-2.15.1/grep/gnulib/lib/stpcpy.c
./lib/openat-die.c -> /home/grep-2.15.1/grep/gnulib/lib/openat-die.c
./lib/getdtablesize.c -> /home/grep-2.15.1/grep/gnulib/lib/getdtablesize.c
./lib/filenamecat-lgpl.c -> /home/grep-2.15.1/grep/gnulib/lib/filenamecat-lgpl.c
./lib/signbitl.c -> /home/grep-2.15.1/grep/gnulib/lib/signbitl.c
         # many more lib links...
./build-aux/vc-list-files -> /home/grep-2.15.1/grep/gnulib/build-aux/vc-list-files
./build-aux/gnu-web-doc-update -> /home/grep-2.15.1/grep/gnulib/build-aux/gnu-web-doc-update
         # A few more build-aux links omitted...

# Here are the relative-pathname symlinks that I found after executing ./bootstrap:

./build-aux/texinfo.tex -> ../gnulib/build-aux/texinfo.tex
./build-aux/depcomp -> ../gnulib/build-aux/depcomp
./build-aux/install-sh -> ../gnulib/build-aux/install-sh
./build-aux/config.sub -> ../gnulib/build-aux/config.sub
./build-aux/mdate-sh -> ../gnulib/build-aux/mdate-sh
./build-aux/config.guess -> ../gnulib/build-aux/config.guess
./INSTALL -> gnulib/doc/INSTALL