ruby / ruby/fileutils

Mangled generated path on `ln_s` with `relative: true`

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Ruby
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Description

I found this accidently when trying to wrote a dotfile linker utility.

Seems like FileUtils.ln_s will fail when the resulting relative path contains ../ (one directory hierarchy higher) as the relative path being generated is mangled.

Sample snippets to reproduce:

FileUtils.ln_s(
  "/home/mipan/.dotfiles/zsh", "/home/mipan/.config/zsh",
   verbose: true, noop: true, relative: true
)

Output: ln -s  /home/mipan/.config/zsh/zsh

And this is not a pure logging bug, when the noop set to false:

FileUtils.ln_s(
  "/home/mipan/.dotfiles/zsh", "/home/mipan/.config/zsh",
   verbose: true, noop: false, relative: true
)

ln -s  /home/mipan/.config/zsh/zsh
/usr/lib/ruby/3.4.0/fileutils.rb:760:in 'File.symlink': No such file or directory @ rb_file_s_symlink - (, /home/mipan/.config/zsh/zsh) (Errno::ENOENT)
	from /usr/lib/ruby/3.4.0/fileutils.rb:760:in 'block in FileUtils.ln_sr'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/3.4.0/fileutils.rb:765:in 'FileUtils.ln_sr'
	from /usr/lib/ruby/3.4.0/fileutils.rb:709:in 'FileUtils.ln_s'
	from ./dot_linker.rb:362:in '<main>'

Sample for working parameters:

FileUtils.ln_s(
  "/home/mipan/.dotfiles/zsh", "/home/mipan/zsh",
   verbose: true, noop: true, relative: true
)

Output: ln -s .dotfiles/zsh /home/mipan/zsh

Ruby version:

❯ ruby --version
ruby 3.4.4 (2025-05-14 revision a38531fd3f) +PRISM [x86_64-linux]

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First steps

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  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start with fileutils.rb around lines 709 and 760, where the stack trace shows FileUtils.ln_s and FileUtils.ln_sr handling the relative link. Reproduce the failing and working snippets with relative: true, checking both noop modes. Done means the higher-directory case produces the correct relative target in verbose output and creates the symlink successfully.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
ruby
Domain
tooling
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
68/100

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