On Tue, Aug 5, 2025, 11:32 PM Bridger Dyson-Smith <bdysonsm...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hi all -
>
> I'm trying to use Ant to help automate a software install/update process:
> a ZIP download and unpack, remove empty directories, create symlinks in
> their place, and then apply some simple regex/replace tasks. I have the
> process worked out on a FreeBSD machine, but as soon as I move the
> build.xml to a Linux system, things fail when I try to create the symlinks.
>
> I've been working with the assumption that I may be either updating an
> existing install (ie I have symlinks) or I am installing fresh (ie I have
> empty directories), so the tasks are... uh, probably unnecessarily verbose
> (suggestions for improvements welcome). The error on linux comes in when
> the `symlink` task is called: I get the following BUILD FAILED error:
> 'Deletion of file at /home/bridger/bin/basex/data failed, while trying to
> overwrite it with a symlink.'
>
> Any suggestions about what to do to fix this and make it more robust?
> Thanks in advance for your time and help.
> Best,
> Bridger
>
>
> <target name="rm-dirs">
> <if>
> <available file="${basex-home}/data" type="dir"/>
> <then>
> <echo>*** ${basex-home}/data symlink available ***</echo>
> <delete removenotfollowedsymlinks="true" failonerror="false">
> <fileset followsymlinks="false" dir="${basex-home}/data"/>
> </delete>
> </then>
> </if>
> <if>
> <available file="${basex-home}/repo" type="dir"/>
> <then>
> <echo>*** ${basex-home}/repo symlink available ***</echo>
> <delete removenotfollowedsymlinks="true" failonerror="false">
> <fileset followsymlinks="false" dir="${basex-home}/repo"/>
> </delete>
> </then>
> </if>
> <if>
> <available file="${basex-home}/src" type="dir"/>
> <then>
> <echo>*** ${basex-home}/repo symlink available ***</echo>
> <delete removenotfollowedsymlinks="true" failonerror="false">
> <fileset followsymlinks="false" dir="${basex-home}/src "/>
> </delete>
> </then>
> </if>
> <if>
> <available file="${basex-home}/data" type="dir"/>
> <then>
> <delete failonerror="false"><fileset dir="${basex-home}/data"/></delete>
> </then>
> </if>
> <if>
> <available file="${basex-home}/repo" type="dir"/>
> <then>
> <delete failonerror="false"><fileset dir="${basex-home}/repo"/></delete>
> </then>
> </if>
> <if>
> <available file="${basex-home}/src" type="dir"/>
> <then>
> <delete failonerror="false"><fileset dir="${basex-home}/src"/></delete>
> </then>
> </if>
> </target>
>
> <target name="symlink-dirs" depends="rm-dirs">
> <echo>*** creating symlinks for `data`, `repo`, and `src` directories
> ***</echo>
> <symlink overwrite="true" link="${basex-home}/data"
> resource="${bin}/basex-data"/>
> <symlink overwrite="true" link="${basex-home}/repo"
> resource="${bin}/basex-repo"/>
> <symlink overwrite="true" link="${basex-home}/src"
> resource="${bin}/basex-src"/>
> </target>
>
> Apologies, forgot to mention that I have the antcontribs installed (from
source forge).
Best,
Bridger
>
