On MacOS X, the /tmp directory is actually a link to /private/tmp.  

If you untar the darcs 2.0.3pre1 tarball into /tmp and run make test in it, the
mv-formerly-pl.sh test fails when it tries to darcs mv `pwd`/abs_path.t
abs_path_new.t

Darcs refuses to do this because it does not recognise `pwd`/abs_path.t as a
repo path (because the repo path starts with /private/tmp).  The problem is that
darcs fails to recognise that when you are asking for /tmp/foo, you are really
asking for /private/tmp/foo.  I think this should be a simple matter of making
the path-fixing a tiny bit fancier.

I reproduced this on a mac:

 /tmp/darcs-2.0.3pre1/temp$ darcs mv `pwd`/abs_path.t abs_path_new.t
 Ignoring non-repository paths: /tmp/darcs-2.0.3pre1/temp/abs_path.t
 darcs: Cannot rename a file or directory onto itself!

Hints from a fruitless debugging session, take with a grain of salt:
The "non-repository paths" warning comes from fixSubPaths, because two paths in
the FixFilePath flag look like /private/tmp/... These come from
getCurrentDirectory in consider_running.

Easy way to test:

~/src/darcs/tests$ shell_harness mv-formerly-pl.sh 
Running mv-formerly-pl.sh ...                    passed.
All tests successful!
~/src/darcs/tests$ cd /tmp
/tmp$ ln -s ~/src/darcs
/tmp$ cd darcs/tests
/tmp/darcs/tests$ shell_harness mv-formerly-pl.sh 
Running mv-formerly-pl.sh ...                    FAILED!

On linux it works fine. Looks like symlinks and pwd behave differently on mac os.

Regards,
  Dmitry

Is this related to http://bugs.darcs.net/issue1057? But in any case: I need a volunteer to produce a test 
case for this. I appears from the messages attached that a Mac OS X system is needed for this, but without 
understanding, who can tell? The test itself could go along these lines: (1) mkdir absdir; (2) ln -s absdir 
symdir; (3) do things with a darcs repository in symdir that fails.

Best regards
Thorkil

I think we have that test case already ? The last part of mv-formerly-pl.sh.
Perhaps you want to break that out as a separate test and make it aware of the
platform it's on for clarity. I think what's needed most is some debugging,
maybe two of us with macs on #darcs can succeed. Contact me there if you want to
work on it.

On Tue, Sep 23, 2008 at 16:13:19 -0000, Simon Michael wrote:
> I think we have that test case already ? The last part of mv-formerly-pl.sh.
> Perhaps you want to break that out as a separate test and make it aware of the
> platform it's on for clarity. I think what's needed most is some debugging,
> maybe two of us with macs on #darcs can succeed. Contact me there if you want to
> work on it.

I have just sent a test case to the list today.

(ahah! perhaps further evidence that we need a patch tracker... one
 which integrates with the bugtracker)

Resolved by:

Thu Sep 25 21:57:26 MSD 2008  Dmitry Kurochkin <dmitry.kurochkin@gmail.com>
  * Resolve issue1078: make ioAbsolute work with symbolic links in file paths.