.hgcheck symlinks & dropbox

[Mads Kiilerich]

On 01/03/2013 09:48 AM, Dr. Hegewald wrote:
>> Mercurial will try to create a 'hg-checklink-??????' symlink in the working directory to find out whether the filesystem support symlinks or not.
> OK, so the file *is* created by mercurial`.

No. Mercurial will create the check file in the root of the working 
directory, not in .hgcheck. And Mercurial will use a random non-existing 
filename when it is checking for symlink capabilities.

But yes, it seems like such a symlink somehow got committed to your 
repo, and Mercurial will then try to create it when updating - just like 
any other file. But Mercurial can do its job because the symlink 
collides with an existing directory.

> It is working fine for me for more than a year now. But because 
> Dropbox interferes with the mercurial repo structure, it does not seem 
> to be the best idea (-: 

I see no indication that it interferes with the internal repo structure.

The problem seems to be that it mangles the symlinks that Mercurial 
carefully manage in your working directory.

Put slightly different: You have two systems that both try to manage the 
content of your working directory. That might lead to confusion.

> If I commit a symlink, it will be stored as a symlink in .hg/ ?

No. It will be stored inside .hg in a ordinary file in the revlog 
format. The symlink will be created in the working directory when 
updating ... if the filesystem supports symlinks.

/Mads