pickconfig.tcl does not parse config folders if it is a symlink to folder

[hmnijp]

Here are the steps I follow to reproduce the issue:

The /mnt/my_configs/ folder contains one or more ini configurations.

I created a symlink ~/linuxcnc/configs/my_configs -> /mnt/my_configs/, but pickconfig.tcl does not display this in "My Configurations" section.

If the entire linuxccnc folder is a symlink (~/linuxcnc -> /mnt/linuxcnc/), then pickconfig.tcl will show all the configurations found inside it, but this option creates problems for installing some other configurations (probe basic, etc.)

This is what I expected to happen:

all symlinks inside '~/linuxcnc/configs/' will be interpreted the same way as as folders containing configurations.

Information about my hardware and software:

LinuxCNC 2.9.3
A binary version from linuxcnc.org (including buildbot.linuxcnc.org)

[andypugh]

I am curious. Why not just put the config in the usual place?
I will happily accept a PR to fix this, but it's not high on my list of things to spend my own time on. I can't speak for anyone else.

[phillc54]

I am not sure if this would cause issues on other filesystems but this appears to work on APFS mounted using NFS.

Change L162 of pickconfig.tcl from:
return [exec find $startdir -type f \
to:
return [exec find -L $startdir -type f \

[hmnijp]

I will happily accept a PR to fix this, but it's not high on my list of things to spend my own time on. I can't speak for anyone else.

I agree that it's not the most important issue, but I'm not tcl savvy and thought it wouldn't take long for someone to figure it out. Thanks @phillc54 - this small change solved the problem, I think this can be included in the PR.

I am curious. Why not just put the config in the usual place?

My experience really goes beyond normal use. I often have to work with different configurations to help other people with customisation (I am an admin of a small linuxcnc group on telegram). I run test configurations on different machines - a small PC for testing, a Windows WSL virtual machine that I use everyday, or rebooting into Linux on that PC.. I got tired of copying configurations between them, so I decided to store them all on a network drive, and add a symlink to that folder on each target system... That's where I ran into this little problem. My stupidity was not to look at the available keys (-L) for ‘exec find’. I didn't realise it was that easy.

[andypugh]

Fixed with f663785