Gulp.src() doesn't follow symlinks

[OnkelTem]

Original issue title: Incorrect permissions while copying symlinked files

If a file being copied by gulp is a symlink then the target gets 777 permissions.
I created a repo to demonstrate this behavior: https://github.com/OnkelTem/gulp-copy-symlink-demo

So how to make it to follow symlinks to get correct stats?

[OnkelTem]

Here is a console example of stat'ing src/file1:

$ stat src/file1
  File: `src/file1' -> `./file1source'
  Size: 13              Blocks: 0          IO Block: 4096   symbolic link
Device: 802h/2050d      Inode: 429120      Links: 1
Access: (0777/lrwxrwxrwx)  Uid: ( 1000/user)   Gid: ( 1000/user)
Access: 2015-09-24 13:31:27.676082282 +0300
Modify: 2015-09-24 13:31:27.676082282 +0300
Change: 2015-09-24 13:31:27.676082282 +0300
 Birth: -

Note Access: (0777/lrwxrwxrwx) — this is symlink's properties.
And now with -L (follow symlinks) flag:

$ stat -L src/file1
  File: `src/file1'
  Size: 0               Blocks: 0          IO Block: 4096   regular empty file
Device: 802h/2050d      Inode: 429121      Links: 1
Access: (0664/-rw-rw-r--)  Uid: ( 1000/user)   Gid: ( 1000/user)
Access: 2015-09-24 13:24:54.000000000 +0300
Modify: 2015-09-24 13:24:54.000000000 +0300
Change: 2015-09-24 13:31:27.676082282 +0300
 Birth: -

— much better, showing the actual file's permissions.

So it's pretty clear that some underlying stuff doesn't follow symlinks.

[yocontra]

Use gulp.symlink not gulp.dest

[OnkelTem]

@contra

Eric, I'm not sure I understand you.

You are advising to change something in the control script. Well, It's like having different soaps to wash hands at odd and even days of month. Symlinks are there to substitute files, a level of abstraction, you can symlink one file or all files, and the behavior of a system should be the same still.

I have a feeling that you didn't read the issue. Closing the issue seems to me premature.

[yocontra]

Okay, I will re-open the issue because I must be misunderstanding you. Can you tell me if using gulp.symlink solves this problem?

[OnkelTem]

Thank you.
Shouldn't gulp.symlink create a simlink as its name implies? If this is the case, then I should note that it's not what I'm talking about as I don't need any symlinks to be created. In my case I have a template file symlinked somewhere else. Consider this example:

_project_common_files/
  src/
    LICENSE.txt
project1/
  src/
   ~LICENSE.txt (-> ../_project_common_files/LICENSE.txt)
project2/
  src/
   ~LICENSE.txt (-> ../_project_common_files/LICENSE.txt)
...

Does it make sense now?

That said, I had no chance to test gulp.symlink as there is no symlink property or function in the gulp object.

[yocontra]

@OnkelTem Can you try all of this out on the latest version of gulp (on the 4.0 branch)?

You can install it with npm install gulpjs/gulp#4.0

[OnkelTem]

@contra

Thanks for the quick reply, that way we will nail it down soon :)

Just tried 4.0 branch, first with gulp.dest() and then with gulp.symlink().

With gulp.dest() the result is different (comparing to 3.x) but yet wrong — in the tmp/ dir I'm getting file1source file now, i.e. the symlink is followed "too much":

-rw-rw-r-- 1 user user    0 Sep 27 14:37 file1source

With gulp.symlink() I got even more weird results:

lrwxrwxrwx 1 user user   61 Sep 27 14:40 file1source -> /var/.../gulp-copy-symlink-demo/src/file1source

— the name is taken from the original file while created a symlink to original file.

[OnkelTem]

Branch 4.0

It seems to me that confusion comes from vinyl-fs's resolveSymlink() which overwrites file name by recursively following symlinks. This quick patch demonstrates the expected behavior:

• stats are read from the real file
• name and path are preserved

--- gulp-copy-symlink-demo/vinyl-fs.orig/lib/src/resolveSymlinks.js
+++ gulp-copy-symlink-demo/vinyl-fs/lib/src/resolveSymlinks.js
@@ -24,11 +24,20 @@
           return cb(err);
         }

+        // Save for later
+        var _base = globFile.base,
+            _path = globFile.path;
+
         globFile.base = path.dirname(filePath);
         globFile.path = filePath;

         // recurse to get real file stat
         resolveFile(globFile, enc, cb);
+
+        // restore
+        globFile.base = _base;
+        globFile.path = _path;
+
       });
     });
   }

IMHO this is what link following actually means, how it's implemented right now - is reading links.

Branch 3.0

In previous versions of vinyl-fs was used getStats.js and getStats(). The related code:

function getStats() {
  return through2.obj(fetchStats);
}

function fetchStats(file, enc, cb) {
  fs.lstat(file.path, function (err, stat) {
    if (stat) {
      file.stat = stat;
    }
    cb(err, file);
  });
}

— i.e. no symlinks processing, stats are read directly from the file, and if the file is a link then 777 is what we'd get on Linux.

[yocontra]

@OnkelTem Nice! Want to send a PR?

[OnkelTem]

@contra sure, done. I hope this won't break something else.

UPDATE. Hehe, and it did.

[phated]

I am pretty sure you are looking for the followSymlinks option on gulp.src - by setting that to false, we don't follow symlinks.

[phated]

This issue has been opened on the vinyl-fs repo. Going to close this one.