Re: Directories must not be symbolic

Hi Adam,

Adam Spiers <[email protected]> writes:

> On Sun, Feb 28, 2016 at 07:36:09PM -0500, Vivien Didelot wrote:
>> Adam Spiers <[email protected]> writes:
>> > On Fri, Dec 04, 2015 at 08:48:15PM -0500, Vivien Didelot wrote:
>> >> IMHO, Stow must only symlink files, and create real directories. This
>> >> would ensure a simple and determinist behavior, and remove the need for
>> >> placeholders. What do you think?
>> >
>> > That's precisely why I added the --no-folding option:
>> >
>> >   https://www.gnu.org/software/stow/manual/html_node/Installing-Packages.html#tree%20folding
>> >   https://github.com/aspiers/stow/commit/ed12c787df985896c8ba1c188af45b9fb637b017
>> >
>> > ;-)  So your find pipeline is unnecessary.
>> 
>> Great! I tested it and indeed it removes the need for the placeholders.
>
> Good :-)
>
>> > However personally I don't use --no-folding, because I want more
>> > fine-grained control over which directories are folded, and which
>> > aren't.  For that I use an ugly hack, which is a separate repo I call
>> > "ANTIFOLD", which contains empty hidden .no-stow-folding files in
>> > directories where I don't want folding.  I stow that repo to $HOME
>> > alongside the other ones, and the fact that there are two repos
>> > stowing to the same path causes Stow to ensure that that directory is
>> > unfolded (i.e. a real directory).
>> >
>> > And yes, it's on the TODO list to improve this:
>> >
>> >   https://github.com/aspiers/stow/blob/master/TODO
>> 
>> Do people use symlinks to directory a lot? Because of the flooding issue
>> I mentioned, I'd imagine --no-folding to be the default behavior, and
>> having a --folding or more explicit --symlink-dir option to change it.
>
> I think folding has been the default behaviour for at least 15 years,
> whereas I added only --no-folding 4 years ago, so I expect that the
> vast majority of users are used to folding.  As a result I'm very
> reluctant to change the default behaviour.

That totally makes sense :-)

Best,
-v