pub publish is not picking symbolic links

[frencojobs]

Environment

• pub version or flutter pub version: 2.10.2
• OS version: Ubuntu Linux 20.04
• Are you using the Chinese community mirror or a corporate firewall? No

Problem

I have a mono repo containing multiple packages that I want to publish. Since all projects share the same README.md, I put the README.md in the root and put a link in all projects. The directory structure looks like this,

root/
├── package1/
│   ├── README.md -> link to ../README.md
│   └── pubspec.yaml
├── package2/
│   ├── README.md -> link to ../README.md
│   └── pubspec.yaml
└── README.md

When I want to publish package1, I cd into the package1 directory, and run pub publish. But the command fails with an error saying the link is broken.

Expected behavior

I want it to work well.

Actual behavior

It shows an error like this,

Package archive contains a broken symlink: `README.md` -> `../README.md`.

--trace output

This is a section from --trace output that I think is relevant to the error.

ERR : Package archive contains a broken symlink: `README.md` -> `../README.md`.
FINE: Exception type: ApplicationException
FINE: package:pub/src/utils.dart 513:5            fail
    | package:pub/src/http.dart 309:3             handleJsonError
    | package:pub/src/command/lish.dart 109:9     LishCommand._publish
    | ===== asynchronous gap ===========================
    | dart:async                                  Future.catchError
    | package:pub/src/utils.dart 113:52           captureErrors.wrappedCallback
    | package:stack_trace                         Chain.capture
    | package:pub/src/utils.dart 126:11           captureErrors
    | package:pub/src/command_runner.dart 182:13  PubCommandRunner.runCommand

[jonasfj]

(A) Should multiple packages really have the same README ?
(B) Couldn't a simple script wrapping pub publish simply copy it?

---

I'm wondering if it's a good idea to allow symlinks at all?

We probably should scan packages on pub.dev to find out how many use symlinks, and for what purpose.

[Gustl22]

@jonasfj It makes sense e.g. for having the same license in every package. Git supports symlinks in their scope, so I expect pub to support it too (maybe outside of sub-package scope).