Organize has different move behavior when using wildcard
Metadata
Current evaluation
Snapcraft organize keyword moves directory contents for literal paths but the directory itself for glob/wildcard paths, causing confusing 'already exists' errors. No maintainer response in 7 years; behavior still present in craft-parts organize code. Needs triage.
Suggested action: needs triage
Reason: No labels, no comments, no maintainer interaction in ~7 years (2537 days), so it has never been triaged. The inconsistency is still visible in craft_parts/executor/organize.py, which uses link_or_copy_tree for non-globbed trees and different handling for globbed sources, so it is not obsolete. The reporter also asks how to move contents with a wildcard, making it partly a support question, but the underlying inconsistency is a real bug/behavioral inconsistency.
Impact:
40
Quick Win:
12.0
Staleness:
85
Complexity:
70
Confidence:
70
Support Request:
25
Issue body
This copies the _contents_ of `ClimateTrail-1.3-pc` to the root of the install folder.
organize:
'ClimateTrail-1.3-pc/' : './'
This copies the directory `ClimateTrail-1.3-pc` _itself_ to the root of the install folder (and thus gives the error "ClimateTrail-1.3-pc already exists")
organize:
'ClimateTrail-*-pc/' : './'
This happens because non-globbed directories are moved using `file_utils.link_or_copy_tree`, which copies _contents_
https://github.com/snapcore/snapcraft/blob/ae7ab338e4c5d49edb88b8ff78da6e98dc12881a/snapcraft/internal/pluginhandler/__init__.py#L1146
While globbed directories are moved using `shutil.move(src, dst)` which moves the directory _itself_
https://github.com/snapcore/snapcraft/blob/ae7ab338e4c5d49edb88b8ff78da6e98dc12881a/snapcraft/internal/pluginhandler/__init__.py#L1179
This inconsistency is quite confusing and made me lose a lot of time. I suspect changing this behavior will break a lot of existing snapcraft.yaml files, so that's not really an option. However, I'm completely lost as to how I should move the contents of `ClimateTrail-1.3-pc` to the root without specifying the version number.
If I try
organize:
'ClimateTrail-*-pc/*' : './'
I get the error `Destination path '/root/parts/climate-trail/install/./ClimateTrail.sh' already exists` and I have no idea why..
For reference, these are the contents of the directories:
snapcraft-climate-trail # ls parts/climate-trail/build/
ClimateTrail-1.3a-pc
snapcraft-climate-trail # ls parts/climate-trail/build/ClimateTrail-1.3a-pc/
ClimateTrail.py ClimateTrail.sh game lib renpy
snapcraft-climate-trail # ls parts/climate-trail/install/
ClimateTrail-1.3a-pc ClimateTrail.sh etc lib usr
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| qwen/qwen3.8-27b |
Impact:
40
Quick Win:
12.0
Staleness:
85
Complexity:
70
Confidence:
70
Support Request:
25
|
needs triage | Snapcraft organize keyword moves directory contents for literal paths but the directory itself for glob/wildcard paths, causing confusing 'already exists' errors. No maintainer response in 7 years; behavior still present in craft-parts organize code. Needs triage. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
95
Complexity:
50
Confidence:
85
Support Request:
20
|
close stale | Inconsistency in snapcraft's organize directive: non-globbed paths copy directory contents while globbed paths move the directory itself. Unresolved, no maintainer response, inactive for ~6.8 years. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
40
Confidence:
95
Support Request:
20
|
close stale | Inconsistent behavior in Snapcraft's organize directive: literal paths copy directory contents, while wildcards move the directory itself. Reported as confusing and lacking a clear workaround. No activity in nearly 7 years. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
95
Complexity:
50
Confidence:
85
Support Request:
20
|
close stale | Reports inconsistent directory handling in Snapcraft's organize step between literal paths and wildcards. Unaddressed for over six years with no maintainer feedback. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
95
Complexity:
55
Confidence:
85
Support Request:
15
|
close stale | Inconsistent directory move behavior in snapcraft's organize directive when using wildcards versus literal paths. Issue is over 6 years old with no maintainer response or activity. |
Update history
No update history recorded yet.
Related issues
| Issue | Project | State | Summary | Similarity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1663233 Confusing error message for "organize" when source refers to multiples items and destination doesn't end up with / | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Snapcraft 2.26 (2017) reports a misleading 'already exists' error when an organize glob matches multiple items and the destination lacks a trailing slash; reporter suggests auto-treating the destination as a directory. No maintainer response; code has since moved to craft-parts. | |
| #1668555 Using organize to move a folder to a child folder fails due to recursion | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Snapcraft organize directive causes infinite recursion when moving a folder into its own child path (e.g. '.': lib/python3.6/site-packages). Workaround via glob ('*') documented in issue. 9+ years old, zero comments, no labels, never triaged. | |
| #1669908 Provide visible yaml settings or document organize plugin behavior for directory merging | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Request to document or expose a snapcraft.yaml knob for the organize plugin's directory-merging behavior, after a cryptic 'path ./ already exists' error from shutil.move when using '*' keys. No labels, no maintainer response, 0 comments; last activity 47 days ago on a ~9.5-year-old issue. | |
| #553 Organize does not raise error if source file does not exist | craft-parts | open | craft-parts organize silently succeeds when a non-glob source file does not exist, so a renamed/missing file in a rockcraft.yaml organize mapping is not caught at build time. Maintainer confirmed root cause (empty glob iterator) in 2023; no fix landed. | |
| #1794083 Updating build with organize can result in "destination path already exists" | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Closed without resolution. Snapcraft's automatic rebuild fails when organize globs map to the same directory twice, causing a path conflict. No fix or follow-up was documented. |