When one runs something along the lines of: ROOT=/var/tmp/newroot emerge -n app-vim/gentoo-syntax The following symlink is created: $ ls -l /var/tmp/newroot/usr/share/vim/vim90/doc/gentoo-syntax.txt lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 66 Jan 17 22:25 /var/tmp/newroot/usr/share/vim/vim90/doc/gentoo-syntax.txt -> /var/tmp/newroot/usr/share/vim/vimfiles/doc/gentoo-syntax.txt Of course, when chrooted, this doesn't work, and the file is treated as non-existing. More annoyingly, however, any rebuild of a package that includes vim-doc.eclass is hit by the following error: ln: failed to create symbolic link '/usr/share/vim/vim90/doc/eselect-syntax.txt': File exists * ERROR: app-vim/gentoo-syntax-11::gentoo failed (postinst phase): * (no error message) * * Call stack: * ebuild.sh, line 136: Called pkg_postinst * environment, line 547: Called vim-plugin_pkg_postinst * environment, line 721: Called update_vim_helptags * environment, line 647: Called die * The specific snippet of code: * ln -s "${helpfile}" "${d}/doc" || die; * * If you need support, post the output of `emerge --info '=app-vim/gentoo-syntax-11::gentoo'`, * the complete build log and the output of `emerge -pqv '=app-vim/gentoo-syntax-11::gentoo'`. * The complete build log is located at '/var/tmp/portage/app-vim/gentoo-syntax-11/temp/build.log'. * The ebuild environment file is located at '/var/tmp/portage/app-vim/gentoo-syntax-11/temp/environment'. * Working directory: '/var/tmp/portage/app-vim/gentoo-syntax-11/empty' * S: '/var/tmp/portage/app-vim/gentoo-syntax-11/work/gentoo-syntax-11' * FAILED postinst: 1 What needs to happen is twofold: 1. Run `ln` with the `-f` parameter, or otherwise check if a link exists to a non-existing file to warn about before erroring out 2. The link should target a file that exists under the ROOT. Either by replacing the ln line with `ln -s "/usr/share/vim/vimfiles/$(basename "${helpfile}")"` or creating a relative symlink (probably better, anyway).
To expand on "1.", I think that while existing links may be better left alone, links pointing to nonexisting files may be replaced automatically, while reporting them with `ewarn`.
