Re: [Bug-stow] Directories must not be symbolic

[Adam Spiers]

Hi Viven,

On Fri, Dec 04, 2015 at 08:48:15PM -0500, Vivien Didelot wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I'm using Stow to manage my dotfiles as packages. I basically have the
> following Stow directory in my $HOME:
> 
>     Stow
>     ├── emacs
>     │   ├── .emacs
>     │   └── .emacs.d
>     │       └── .placeholder
>     ├── git
>     │   └── .gitconfig
>     └── mail
>         ├── bin
>         │   ├── mua
>         ├── .emacs.d
>         │   ├── notmuch-config.el
>         ├── Mail
>         │   ├── .notmuch
>         │   │   └── hooks
>         │   │       ├── post-insert
>         │   │       ├── post-new
>         │   │       └── pre-new
>         │   └── work
>         │       └── .placeholder
>         ├── .mbsyncrc
>         ├── .msmtprc
>         └── .notmuch-config

Cool!  I do something almost identical, except I call the stow
directory ~/.STOW.  As an aside, did you see this which I linked from
the homepage?

  http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/info-stow/2011-12/msg00000.html

> The problem is that if a directory doesn't exist in the target directory
> (here it is $HOME), Stow will create a symlink for it, instead of
> creating a real directory.
> 
> This is bad and unlikely to be wanted, because you may end up flooding
> your Stow packages with unwanted files.
> 
> For instance, emacs will add some files in ~/.emacs.d
> (e.g. auto-save-list, elpa, ido.last), that I wish not to manage. Worst,
> my email database synced in ~/Mail/work (about 2.3G) or the notmuch
> database in ~/Mail/.notmuch (about 1.8G) got into my mail package.
> 
> To workaround this issue, I remember myself to type the following
> command from within the Stow directory to ensure each (or a single)
> package has the required directories in the target before stowing it:
> 
>     find * -mindepth 1 -type d | sed "s,^[^/]*,$HOME," | sort -u | xargs 
> mkdir -p
> 
> IMHO, Stow must only symlink files, and create real directories. This
> would ensure a simple and determinist behavior, and remove the need for
> placeholders. What do you think?

That's precisely why I added the --no-folding option:

  
https://www.gnu.org/software/stow/manual/html_node/Installing-Packages.html#tree%20folding
  
https://github.com/aspiers/stow/commit/ed12c787df985896c8ba1c188af45b9fb637b017

;-)  So your find pipeline is unnecessary.

However personally I don't use --no-folding, because I want more
fine-grained control over which directories are folded, and which
aren't.  For that I use an ugly hack, which is a separate repo I call
"ANTIFOLD", which contains empty hidden .no-stow-folding files in
directories where I don't want folding.  I stow that repo to $HOME
alongside the other ones, and the fact that there are two repos
stowing to the same path causes Stow to ensure that that directory is
unfolded (i.e. a real directory).

And yes, it's on the TODO list to improve this:

  https://github.com/aspiers/stow/blob/master/TODO

HTH,
Adam