How to replace a file with a directory?

(1) By anonymous on 2019-09-04 00:01:17 [link] [source]

I am tracking software releases using a vendor branch and making my additions on the trunk.

To update I do the following:

fossil update vendor
tar -xzvf vendor_file.tgz --strip-component=1

this unpacks the tarball in the current directory overlaying the previous vendor files. I then delete/add old/new files.

In this release a file let's call it retool was replaced by a directory retool with files under it.

This leads to the error:

not an ordinary file: /.../retool/retool abort due to prior errors

when running fossil diff or commit (timeline works, but I didn't try other commands).

I was thinking of doing the following:

fossil revert # to get the last vendor branch version
fossil rm --hard retool/retool
fossil ci -m "remove old retool file"

then do the:

tar -xzvf file.tgz ....

followed by

fossil --tag release-3.2 -m "..."

Is this the best way to do this or have I uncovered a bug in fossil?

Also given this surgery, should I expect an issue with:

 fossil up trunk
 fossil merge vendor

Will the directory overlay the existing file in the trunk checkout, or should I delete the file from trunk before I do the merge?

-- rouilj

(2) By Richard Hipp (drh) on 2019-09-04 00:20:44 in reply to 1 [link] [source]

Your suggested approach is what I was going to recommend trying. But I've never done it myself and don't know how it will go.

(3) By anonymous on 2019-09-04 01:32:57 in reply to 2 [source]

The directions above succeeded for the checkin with one exception.

fossil revert

had issues and left me with a retool/retool directory with mode 644. Once I chmod 755 and manually deleted the directory I was able to rerun the fossil revert and get a clean directory back.

I then did a:

fossil up trunk

and again ended up with a wacky update because of the retool directory. The output was normal until:

ADD .../retool/retool
/.../retool/retool is directory, cannot overwrite
Rolling back prior filesystem changes...
...

again I had a mode 644 retool/retool directory. Doing a chmod 755 retool/retool fossil diff -r vendor showed no changes.

Then an rm -rf retool/retool followed by a fossil up trunk resulted in:

 ADD  retool/retool
 CONFLICT retool/retool/start.sh
 CONFLICT retool/retool/open.sh
 ... continues for all files in retool/retool

but if I run fossil status it doesn't list any files and retool/retool is a file as expected.

If I now run fossil merge vendor it works ok replacing retool/retool with a directory. fossil diff reports:

ADDED_BY_MERGE retool/retool/start.sh
ADDED    retool/retool

running fossil diff a second time leads to:

 not an ordinary file: /.../retool/retool
 abort due to prior errors

rm -rf on retool/retool followed by a fossil revert seems to put the working directory back into an unbroken state at the tip of trunk.

fossil rm --hard retool/retool
fossil ci -m "clearing space for directory"
fossil merge vendor

seems to have worked. The build completed at least.

Hopefully this is helpful for others.