tar and symlinks? (slackware like packages)

McZ · 08-27-2012, 05:04 AM

I want to build and compress lots of source packages to slackware like packages.

And I know that Slackwares makepkg is creating a script for all symlinks for that package and removes the symlink.

So now I want to know if there is any problem with tar:ing a symlink?

if I do like this

Code:

cd package-1.1
./configure
make
make DESTDIR=/fakeroot install
cd /fakeroot
tar cfz . ../package-1.1.tar.gz (or something like that)

Will the symlinks uncompress correctly when I want to install the package? or is there a chance the symlinks may be broken during unpacking?

pan64 · 08-27-2012, 05:33 AM

tar will not process/update or adjust symlinks. You can use -h (--dereference) to follow symlinks and pack the files instead of the links. (otherwise yes, those symlinks may or may not be broken)

McZ · 08-27-2012, 06:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan64

tar will not process/update or adjust symlinks. You can use -h (--dereference) to follow symlinks and pack the files instead of the links. (otherwise yes, those symlinks may or may not be broken)

So if I want to store and make sure my symlinks is correct when extracting my package I have to do a slackware like solution and script my symlinks, or?
I don't want to use -h to store the same file twice I want to save the symlink.

pan64 · 08-27-2012, 07:37 AM

that looks something like dependencies among packages. tar itself cannot handle it, so yes, you need another solution