Symbolic links aren't resolved when creating a zip archive

[Rimas Kudelis]

Binary package hint: file-roller

When creating a zip archive, symbolic links aren't being followed, but are added as links instead (zip -y == store symbolic links as the link instead of the referenced file). I don't think that's how it should be as a symlink in an archive is practically useless. I suggest that file-roller doesn't use zip -y option when creating a zip archive.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Tue Jul 10 07:59:04 2007
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 7.04
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/file-roller
Package: file-roller 2.18.1-0ubuntu1
PackageArchitecture: i386
ProcCmdline: file-roller /home/rq/Desktop/liras422.zip
ProcCwd: /home/rq
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=lt_LT:lt:en_GB:en
 PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/bin/X11:/usr/games
 LANG=lt_LT.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: file-roller
Uname: Linux sugar 2.6.20-16-generic #2 SMP Thu Jun 7 20:19:32 UTC 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug. The archive is usuable, you just have to unpack it. Your way would use extra space. If you want a behaviour change better to discuss it upstream, we are not going to change it in an Ubuntu specific way

[Id2ndR (id2ndr)]

I have the opposite trouble.
I tried to create a tar of a folder containing a link, an it just take huge of time wheras :
- the folder contain just one small file and the link.
- link target is contain GB of data.

using fileroller, it takes too long time (I canceled it and and show the bug #107574).
Using tar -cvf, it work correctly.

I'm running gutsy.

[chrysn (chrysn)]

i think that the most reasonable default behavior would be to keep relative symlink that resolve inside the archive, and to dereference those that are not included. (i'm aware that this is not currently implemented in the regular zip utility, but it might be a good idea to implement that as an option there too.)

it would be nice to have a configuration option; in situations in which the files to be compressed are known, that could be hidden if simplicity is desired.