[syslinux] Symlink in compressed file

[Gene Cumm]

On Sun, Jul 23, 2017 at 7:22 PM,  <mikezb at softhome.net> wrote:
> Gene Cumm:
> …
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ______________________________________________________________________
>>>>>
>>>>> …
>>>>> I … tried a more flexible script, but it had trouble unpacking
>>>>> syslinux-6.04-pre1.tar.xz for application; on inspection of the log, I found
>>>>> incomplete unpacking - at least 1 file (named advconst?) was compressed to
>>>>> zero-length.
>>>>> I suspect this was an error - the zip file worked.
>>>>> …
>>>>
>>>> ______________________________________________________________________
>>>> … advconst.h … It's a symlink.  Some extractors might mess up.
>>>> Extracting onto a file system that has no concept of a symlink like say FAT
>>>> will also have issues. …
>>>
>>> ______________________________________________________________________
>>> …
>>
>> The boot loader _itself_ is compatible.  This is merely a single header
>> file in the source portion of the archive file and unnecessary for normal
>> use.  If I recall correctly, tar can store symlinks while zip can not and
>> must duplicate the file to store it.
>> …
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> Aha!  That script's unpacking far more than necessary!
> Thank you.
> (I'll stick with zips until I have the script working with symlinks/tars.)
>
> Warm Regards

That makes sense.  If it's a script you wrote, consider just pulling
the binary and perl files as needed.  The binaries come in up to 3
flavors (one per architecture), especially COM32 files.  Some tools
are written in Perl to be more cross-platform ready.