Symlink not working with Karmic translations

This looks to be an issue caused by the combination of the symlink-dupes script in ubuntu-docs which uses symlinks for files which are identical (in this case, faq.xml in several languages is identical because it is untranslated and appears in English) and the pkgbinarymangler work that Martin Pitt did to move documentation translations into the langpacks. Possibly because Martin's work uses symlinks too, there seems to be some kind of conflict.

I think the answer is probably simply to stop using the symlink-dupes script as follows, because Martin's work already removes any excess size in the package by splitting out translated xml into separate packages. However I'd like to get Martin's thoughts on that, so I'm subscribing him.

=== modified file 'debian/control'
--- debian/control 2009-04-19 19:24:49 +0000
+++ debian/control 2009-10-11 21:03:44 +0000
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 Priority: optional
 Maintainer: Ubuntu Documentation Team <email address hidden>
 Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 5.0.0), cdbs
-Build-Depends-Indep: xsltproc, docbook-xsl, perl, perl-modules, gnome-doc-utils, docbook-xml, fdupes, bc
+Build-Depends-Indep: xsltproc, docbook-xsl, perl, perl-modules, gnome-doc-utils, docbook-xml, bc
 Standards-Version: 3.8.1
 Homepage: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu-doc

=== modified file 'debian/rules'
--- debian/rules 2009-09-23 06:36:07 +0000
+++ debian/rules 2009-10-11 21:03:20 +0000
@@ -68,5 +68,3 @@
  cp -R build/serverguide/* debian/ubuntu-serverguide/usr/share/ubuntu-serverguide/html/
  cp -R build/libs/C/contributors.html debian/ubuntu-serverguide/usr/share/ubuntu-serverguide/libs/C/

-binary-fixup/ubuntu-docs::
- (cd debian/ubuntu-docs; ../../scripts/symlink-dupes)

=== removed file 'scripts/symlink-dupes'
--- scripts/symlink-dupes 2008-04-03 21:36:44 +0000
+++ scripts/symlink-dupes 1970-01-01 00:00:00 +0000
@@ -1,33 +0,0 @@
-#!/usr/bin/python
-
-import os, subprocess
-
-def pathsplit(p, rest=[]):
- (h,t) = os.path.split(p)
- if len(h) < 1: return [t]+rest
- if len(t) < 1: return [h]+rest
- return pathsplit(h,[t]+rest)
-
-def commonpath(l1, l2, common=[]):
- if len(l1) < 1: return (common, l1, l2)
- if len(l2) < 1: return (common, l1, l2)
- if l1[0] != l2[0]: return (common, l1, l2)
- return commonpath(l1[1:], l2[1:], common+[l1[0]])
-
-def relpath(p1, p2):
- (common,l1,l2) = commonpath(pathsplit(p1), pathsplit(p2))
- p = []
- if len(l1) > 0:
- p = [ '../' * len(l1) ]
- p = p + l2
- return os.path.join( *p )
-
-fdupes = subprocess.Popen(['fdupes', '-r', '--sameline', '.'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
-for l in fdupes.stdout:
- files = l.split()
- master = files.pop(0)
- for dup in files:
- target = relpath(os.path.dirname(dup), master)
- os.unlink(dup)
- os.symlink(target, dup)
- print dup, '->', target

Confirming as I can reproduce this on karmic.

The problem is that the file symlinks to ../am/faq.xml which is not installed because that file is only included in the -am langpack. I don't see any solution to this except for removing the fdupes script in ubuntu-docs.

I think dropping the fdupes script is fine for now, until we have a better solution for moving the gnome help files (the symlinking is just an utter hack, but in GNOME 3.0 there's some architecture to make that more flexible).

Opening a cdbs task and assigning to pitti as discussed on irc.

The problem here is that the following script which is run by cdbs is causing a conflict with the pkgstriptranslations script:

# symlink identical Gnome help files within packages
if [ -z "$CDBS_NO_GNOME_HELP_SYMLINKING" ] && [ -d debian/ubuntu-docs/usr/share/gnome/help ]; then \
            cd debian/ubuntu-docs && LC_ALL=C fdupes -r1nq usr/share/gnome/help | while read s; do \
                set -- $(echo $s | tr ' ' '\n' | sort); \
                f=$1; shift; \
                for d; do \
                    echo "symlinking duplicate Gnome help file $d to $f"; \
                    rm $d; ln -s /$f $d; \
                done; \
            done; \
 fi

The conflict is because that script symlinks various identical xml files to one base xml file, like this:

symlinking duplicate Gnome help file usr/share/gnome/help/windows/be/migratingdata.xml to usr/share/gnome/help/windows/am/migratingdata.xml
symlinking duplicate Gnome help file usr/share/gnome/help/windows/bn/migratingdata.xml to usr/share/gnome/help/windows/am/migratingdata.xml
symlinking duplicate Gnome help file usr/share/gnome/help/windows/ceb/migratingdata.xml to usr/share/gnome/help/windows/am/migratingdata.xml
symlinking duplicate Gnome help file usr/share/gnome/help/windows/da/migratingdata.xml to usr/share/gnome/help/windows/am/migratingdata.xml
symlinking duplicate Gnome help file usr/share/gnome/help/windows/en_AU/migratingdata.xml to usr/share/gnome/help/windows/am/migratingdata.xml
symlinking duplicate Gnome help file usr/share/gnome/help/windows/en_CA/migratingdata.xml to usr/share/gnome/help/windows/am/migratingdata.xml
symlinking duplicate Gnome help file usr/share/gnome/help/windows/eo/migratingdata.xml to usr/share/gnome/help/windows/am/migratingdata.xml
symlinking duplicate Gnome help file usr/share/gnome/help/windows/et/migratingdata.xml to usr/share/gnome/help/windows/am/migratingdata.xml
symlinking duplicate Gnome help file usr/share/gnome/help/windows/fa/migratingdata.xml to usr/share/gnome/help/windows/am/migratingdata.xml
symlinking duplicate Gnome help file usr/share/gnome/help/windows/he/migratingdata.xml to usr/share/gnome/help/windows/am/migratingdata.xml
symlinking duplicate Gnome help file usr/share/gnome/help/windows/hr/migratingdata.xml to usr/share/gnome/help/windows/am/migratingdata.xml
symlinking duplicate Gnome help file usr/share/gnome/help/windows/id/migratingdata.xml to usr/share/gnome/help/windows/am/migratingdata.xml
symlinking duplicate Gnome help file usr/share/gnome/help/windows/jv/migratingdata.xml to usr/share/gnome/help/windows/am/migratingdata.xml
symlinking duplicate Gnome help file usr/share/gnome/help/windows/ka/migratingdata.xml to usr/share/gnome/help/windows/am/migratingdata.xml
symlinking duplicate Gnome help file usr/share/gnome/help/windows/kk/migratingdata.xml to usr/share/gnome/help/windows/am/migratingdata.xml
symlinking duplicate Gnome help file usr/share/gnome/help/windows/kn/migratingdata.xml to usr/share/gnome/help/windows/am/migratingdata.xml
symlinking duplicate Gnome help file usr/share/gnome/help/windows/ku/migratingd...

This bug was fixed in the package ubuntu-docs - 9.10.10

---------------
ubuntu-docs (9.10.10) karmic; urgency=low

  * Remove draft watermark from html pages
  * Drop fdupes script as it clashes with current pkgbinarymangler (LP: #441401)
    - also need to set CDBS_NO_GNOME_HELP_SYMLINKING=1 to stop fdupes script
  * Update version number in offline browser startpage to 9.10

 -- Matthew East <email address hidden> Mon, 12 Oct 2009 22:09:57 +0100

NB - I think that in order for the ubuntu-docs fix to be available, a langpack rebuild will be necessary. I'll retest after the next langpacks.

> NB - I think that in order for the ubuntu-docs fix to be available, a langpack rebuild will be necessary. I'll retest after the next langpacks.

Confirmed, at least to pick up the new translations.