[fpc-pascal] fpc in symlinked directory

[Michael Van Canneyt]

On Tue, 25 Mar 2014, Mattias Gaertner wrote:

> Hi,
>
> When I start fpc in a directory containing symlinks the compiler uses
> the resolved directory, leading to wrong source file names.
> For example:
>
> /tmp/orig/project1.pas
> /tmp/link -> /tmp/orig
>
> cd /tmp/link
> fpc -vb project1.pas
> /tmp/orig/project1.pas(6,5) Error: Identifier not found "w"
>
> Is there a workaround?

No.

> For example a way to tell fpc to use the PWD environment
> variable?

No.

Because if you do a Chdir('ABC') inside a FPC program, the CWD variable is no longer valid.
So it would require us to keep track of what you do. We could hook the Chdir and SetDirectory
calls. But that would go wrong at the first direct syscall or library call that changes the 
current directory.

So, FPC uses a system call to get the correct (resolved) CWD directory. 
This is the only guaranteed mechanism.

So, the best Lazarus can do is resolve all directories before calling the compiler.

Since you brought it up:
IMHO Lazarus must do this resolving anyhow, because now Lazarus does not work at all with symlinks, 
e.g. to find filenames and resolve packages. Regardless of what the compiler does.

I submitted bugreports on the list about this in the past.

Michael.