gnustep-make for windows: linked directory is not really usable

[andre levy]

Hi all,

I'm using gnustep-make 1.10.0. to build my application.
I'm also using mingw-3.1.0-1 for gcc3.2 and msys-1.0.10 to run make.

when I run 'make' my project is compiled.
when I later on run 'make debug=yes' the compilation is interrupted with 
a message like:
rm: 'obj' is a directory
ln: 'obj': cannot overwrite directory

I run into the same problem when I try to re-make a framework. it 
complains that 'Current' is a directory...

after investigating I found that it is because obj and Current are 
'symlinks' to actual directories. That is, they are created with $(LN_S).

well, in config.make I found that LN_S = ln -s. This is because 'ln -s' 
*does* exist in msys but what it does is a 'cp -r'. This explains the 
error message in windows.

the workaround i used was to replace any

'rm -f linkdir; $(LN_S) realdir linkdir'

with

'$(LN_S) -f realdir linkdir'

impacted files were:

rules.make
Instance/framework.make

but of course obj and Current remain useless, and i live with it.

I figure that a more complete solution would be to copy the content of 
the realdir to the linkdir after each modification.

Another possibility would be to use junction 
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/misc.shtml#junction
because symbolic links really do exist in windows, they are called 
junctions. but since there is not support in the system whatsoever, i 
wouldn't recommend its use...

I figure that I am not the first to raise that problem, but since I was 
bitten by it...

thanks to all

--andre