# portmaster's "-g " (create package) (and symlink) question or problem



## jb_fvwm2 (Mar 6, 2012)

Smitten today again by the perplexing problem, someone may correct my understanding of it.  In /usr/ports/packages/All  if I say,

```
mmv libexplain-0.4.6.tbz ../portmaster-download # should be ../portmaster-download/?
```
Somehow the file seems to be moved (no errors), but never reaches /portmaster-download/...
Broken symlinks to the file appear to be in packages/Latest and in packages/devel... but the .tbz  is somehow gone missing! Some variable missing in the environment or some way portmaster works that if I alter the command(s) the file will remain? Or 
	
	



```
cp -iv
```
may work differently than mmv  if symlinks are involved?
...
I've not run enough tests though, I seem to recall it working most of the time.


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## SirDice (Mar 6, 2012)

Why move it in the first place? If I read the man page correctly it'll pick up the packages from the normal places.

You most likely moved the file to ../portmaster-download instead of ../portmaster-download/. So you probably have a file called /usr/ports/portmaster-download instead of a directory.

Moving the original file does not change existing symlinks. Those symlinks will be broken. It's probably better to create symlinks in the portmaster-download/ directory, pointing to the file in All/.


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## jb_fvwm2 (Mar 6, 2012)

I moved them after creation so I could place them on a thumbdrive later (and may cease doing so, or copying them directly to the thumdrive instead of the intermediate step.)... Upon mounting the
thumbdrive I typically have .tbz in both /All and /portmaster-download/...
If I had moved them and renamed them, mmv  would have complained about the second instance ( I was working with multiple files)...
So for now I expect to alleviate the question per the first sentence above in this post (IOW not copying until the thumbdrive is mounted); howsoever I may craft a shell script later to do the copying as-before, but with more complete testing, or using different commands, so they do not  disappear hopefully.


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## jb_fvwm2 (Mar 6, 2012)

Oh well.  Just then I copied them (full paths), confirmed the copy with several methods, including...

```
ls -lac /usr/ports/packages/portmaster-download
```
Shutdown the machine for a few minutes. NOW upon the next boot, prior to shutting down, I notice the files are not there. So something is amiss somewhere.


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## jrm@ (Mar 6, 2012)

Are you running portmaster with -d or --delete-packages?


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## jb_fvwm2 (Mar 6, 2012)

```
portmaster -d -B -i -g
```
... OTOH I have SUJ enabled where the problem occurs. Maybe mmv and symlinks and SUJ do not work well enough together (a bug of some sort), or maybe that is an unfounded suspicion.


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