#246: cabal-install's tar unpacking does not cope well with links ----------------------------------+----------------------------------------- Reporter: duncan | Owner: Type: defect | Status: new Priority: normal | Milestone: Component: cabal-install tool | Version: 1.2.3.0 Severity: normal | Keywords: Difficulty: very easy (<1 hour) | Ghcversion: 6.8.2 Platform: | ----------------------------------+----------------------------------------- {{{ Extracting /home/me/.cabal/packages/hackage.haskell.org/pandoc/0.46/pandoc-0.46.tar.gz to /tmp/TMPpandoc-0.46... cabal: /tmp/TMPpandoc-0.46/pandoc-0.46/COPYRIGHT: copyFile: does not exist (No such file or directory) }}} If we look at this tarfile we find that the `COPYRIGHT` entry in the tar file is actually a symbolic link to `debian/copyright`. The tar code in `cabal-install` is designed to cope with symbolic links. It handles them by copying the target file. Same goes for hard links. The problem in this case is that it is trying to copy the other file before it has been unpacked. One partial solution would be to accumulate a list of links and then copy all at the end after the other files have been unpacked. It's only partial because someone could make a tarball with links pointing to other links. We can probably just ignore that problem and let it fail in the same way it does now. -- Ticket URL: <http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/246> Hackage <http://haskell.org/cabal/> Hackage: Cabal and related projects