[darcs-users] fromJust error in darcs-2.0.0

[Gwern Branwen]

On 2008.04.24 10:06:18 -0400, David Roundy <daveroundy at gmail.com> scribbled 5.5K characters:
> On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 9:19 PM, Greg Holtz <gh2377 at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >  I know this is really wrong, but I changed all instances of
> > getSymbolicLinkStatus to getFileStatus, and things seem to
> > work now. I did double check the whole tree to make sure
> > there were no symbolic links.
>
> It shouldn't actually cause trouble.  In fact, some folks argue that
> we should use getFileStatus instead of getSymbolicLinkStatus, so that
> we'd automatically follow symlinks.  (I think there's a bug on the
> tracker for this.)  So there's no danger that I'm aware of, of using
> getFileStatus as a workaround for a bug in getSymbolicLinkStatus.

Do you know any more specifics about that bug? I tried searching for symbolic links and getSymbolicLinkStatus and getFileStatus, and I eyeballed the link of outstanding bugs, but I didn't see anything.

If switching would solve Greg's bug, and there's no particularly compelling reason to not follow symbolic links, I guess we should just ask Greg for a patch and apply it?

> It does sound like it's the library bug you referenced, although I
> don't know why in that case getFileStatus would work.  One option here
> would be to institute a workaround in darcs for this bug.  That'd
> require some autoconf hackery, and you'd have to do most of the
> testing for that (and as much of the coding as you're comfortable
> with).  This would have the advantage of fixing darcs on OpenSolaris
> for any other users, and would also fix darcs on any unidentified
> platform with a similarly buggy getSymbolicLinkStatus.  On the other
> hand, you've got a perfectly good workaround for yourself, and perhaps
> it's a rare enough platform that we can afford to wait for a new ghc
> release.  Which we choose really depends on how much work you are
> willing to put into this (or someone else with a similarly failing
> system).
>
> David
>
> > I'll toy with getting the latest ghc to compile to see if that
> > fixes things.
>
> That sounds like a good plan.

--
gwern
E.T. CDA SAI LEETAC Hague 50BMG Meade SIGDASYS guest 26
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