Re: Windows Changes in Current master

Hi

I think this _will_ break some builds. At least mine.
I am working inside a folder from a junctioned path. In my buildscript I 
need to find a relative path to a file. This works find in 1.10.15.

With the release candicate 1 this no longer works an my build breaks.
I created a simple sample script to demonstrate the difference:

```xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project name="reldemo_for_1.10.16" default="demo" basedir=".">
   <!-- create C:\Temp\reldemo and copy this file to that folder. -->
   <!-- call: mklink /J C:\Temp\reldemo_junction C:\Temp\reldemo -->
   <!-- C:\Temp\reldemo_junction> ant -->
   <target name="demo">
     <property name="tempfile" value="build/somefile.txt"/>
     <echo>target:${tempfile}</echo>
     <property name="tmp.resolved" location="${tempfile}"/>
     <echo>resolved:${tmp.resolved}</echo>
     <property name="tmp.relative" location="${tmp.resolved}"
                   relative="true" basedir="${basedir}" />
     <echo>relative:${tmp.relative}</echo>
   </target>

   <!-- Result from 1.10.15:
demo:
      [echo] target:build/somefile.txt
      [echo] resolved:d:\Temp\reldemo_junction\build\somefile.txt
      [echo] relative:build\somefile.txt
   -->

   <!-- Result from 1.10.16:
demo:
      [echo] target:build/somefile.txt
      [echo] resolved:d:\Temp\reldemo_junction\build\somefile.txt
      [echo] relative:..\reldemo_junction\build\somefile.txt
   -->

</project>
```

The relative path needs to be resolved from the basedir. It should not 
depend on beeing inside a Junction or not.

Greetings
Jens

Am 06.02.2026 um 21:31 schrieb Stefan Bodewig:
> Hi all
> 
> in the "Planning a Release" thread I said
> 
>> Personally I have at least one Bugzilla issue I want to look into and a
>> small improvement waiting where we can get rid of some pre-Java7ism.
> 
> The small improvement I had in mind was using Path.toRealPath instead of
> getCanonical file as it was supposed to be better in some way.  While
> testing the change on Windows I realized it has in fact become inferior
> with Java 24.
> 
> Until Java 24, toRealPath would resolve symlinks and junctions (a
> special kind of NTFS only symbolic link only for directories and not
> allowed to cross volume boundaries) while getCanonicalPath did not -
> with 24 getCanonicalPath has caught up. Unlike getCanonicalPath
> toRealPath throws an exception when the file or the link target doesn't
> exist, this is why I call it inferior.
> 
> So instead of replacing all getCanonicalPath invocations with toRealPath
> I plan to replace them with a wrapper than only uses toRealPath if
> running on Windows and on Java prior to 21 and if the file actually
> exists.
> 
> This change also made it easier to deal with junctions points, something
> Maarten asked for about three and a half years ago
> https://bz.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=66293
> 
> I intend to make all of Ant treat junctions like symlinks before cutting
> the release.
> 
> All of this is introduces subtle changes on Windows while nothing really
> changes for any other platform. I don't really expect people to be
> affected much as I don't expect file system links to be common at
> all. In either case some extended testing by Windows users would be good
> and I plan to ask people on the users mailing list once the RC is ready
> to be voted on.
> 
> What I still plan to do:
> 
> * look through all tasks with special handling of symlinks and make sure
>    they also know about junctions.
> 
> * introduce a condition "can I create symlinks" as <symlink> should also
>    work on Windows if the stars are properly aligned (basically if Ant
>    runs as admin or developer mode is enabled). This would allow some
>    "unix only" tests to also run on (some) Windows boxes
> 
> * make sure the manual states what really happens WRT symlinks in
>    several places.
> 
> I have already introduced a new task <mklink> that only works on Windows
> (as it uses a cmd.exe built-in) which can be used to create hardlinks,
> symbolic links and junctions on NTFS.
> 
> Stefan
> 
> PS I learned so many new things about NTFS during this, which alone has
> been worth the effort :-)
> 
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