Creating empty directories / folders in InstallAnywhere 2011

Question

I have a script which collected together a number of files to be installed. This includes a number of empty directories.

Previously I would use the D flag in the manifest file which would copy empty directories. However due to the way I generate the manifest files (as part of our build process) I can sometimes end up with two D entries with the same destination folder. e.g:

D;${A_LIB}/all/pysys/${PYSYS_VERSION}/lib/python2.7/site-packages;./third_party/python/lib/python2.7/site-packages;COMMON;${UNIX}
D;${A_LIB_BT}/python/${PYTHON_VERSION};./third_party/python;COMMON;${ALL}

This causes InstallAnywhere to fail to build the installer.

To get around this I rewrote the manifest generation code to parse the directories previously pointed to by a D and replace the D entry with F entries for each file in the directory.

Unfortunately this will not include empty directories (which we may / may not need in the installer but in general it's just safer to create them than have some piece of code fail because they're not there).

I've tried the following in the manifest. Reference, Reference3 and Reference4 are empty, Reference2 contains a single directory (which is itself empty). Only Reference2 is present in the install - the other three which are empty directories seem to get excluded.

D,$IA_PROJECT_DIR$/samples/pysys/cor_002/Reference,./samples/pysys/cor_002/Reference
D,$IA_PROJECT_DIR$/samples/pysys/cor_002/Reference2,./samples/pysys/cor_002/Reference2
D,$IA_PROJECT_DIR$/samples/pysys/cor_002/Reference3/.,./samples/pysys/cor_002/Reference3/.
D,$IA_PROJECT_DIR$/samples/pysys/cor_002/Reference4/../Reference4,./samples/pysys/cor_002/Reference4/../Reference4

I've also tried increasing the log level but this has not revealed anything. Is there a way to increase this log level?

export LAX_DEBUG=true

Any suggestions?

DISCLAIMER: I've cross posted this to InstallAnywhere's forums but I will do my best to keep the answers in sync and spread the knowledge.

Answer 1

The solution turns out to be so blindingly simple that I never tried it.

To get EMPTY directories installed by Install Anywhere you have to specify the directories as files in the manifest. So with the following directory structure:

• Reference <empty>
• Reference2
  • testdir <empty>
• Reference3 <empty>
• Reference4 <empty>

You need to specify the entries in the manifest as F. Specifying then as D will only result in the "Reference2" directory being included.

F,$IA_PROJECT_DIR$/samples/pysys/cor_002/Reference,./samples/pysys/cor_002/Reference
F,$IA_PROJECT_DIR$/samples/pysys/cor_002/Reference2,./samples/pysys/cor_002/Reference2
F,$IA_PROJECT_DIR$/samples/pysys/cor_002/Reference3/.,./samples/pysys/cor_002/Reference3/.
F,$IA_PROJECT_DIR$/samples/pysys/cor_002/Reference4/../Reference4,./samples/pysys/cor_002/Reference4/../Reference4

Sorry to answer my own question, really wasn't the plan!

Answer 2

I can't speak to your manifest challenges. However, my first thought is to change the manifest generator to be sensitive to duplicate output locations -- maybe by storing them in a Map or Set -- and then handling collisions when they occur by failing the build or adjusting the output location(s).

On the other hand, I can tell you how to increase the verbosity of your installer.

Make the installer more verbose by adding:

-Dlax.debug.all=true -Dlax.debug.level=3

to Project > JVM Settings > Installer Settings (tab) > Optional Installer Arguments > Additional Arguments. You'll want to remove these before you ship. You can also add these to the command line when you start the installer. Level values of 4 and 5 work, too, and are even more verbose.

You can also make your installer print its progress to the console by going to Project > JVM Settings > Log Settings. Here, uncheck Include debug output (stderr and stdout). Then enter the word console in Send stderr to: and Send stdout to:. Rather than console, you can also set a specific file name. You'll also want to undo these settings before you ship.