RPM upgrade problem: howto replace a directory with a symlink?

[Tom Lane]

Miroslav Lichvar <mlichvar at redhat.com> writes:
> On Wed, Aug 22, 2007 at 12:15:06PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
>> [tgl at rh2 x86_64]$ sudo rpm -F postgresql-8.2.4-4.x86_64.rpm postgresql-serv...
>> error: unpacking of archive failed on file /usr/share/pgsql/timezone: cpio: rename failed - Is a directory

> It's an old bug in rpm, can't find it in bugzilla atm. The workaround
> is to symlink everything in the directory, not sure how stable is the
> content of /usr/share/zoneinfo though. I've done this in ncurses
> package.

Egad, that seems pretty horrid.  They do change the list of zones
and zone aliases now and then.

An idea that just came to me is to ship the rpm containing a single
empty directory at /usr/share/pgsql/timezone (I assume RPM can handle
removing the contents...) and then have a postinstall scriptlet that
rmdir's the directory and creates the symlink instead.  This would
leave the RPM manifest correctly showing ownership of one file there,
but it would be a symlink not an empty directory.  Can anyone state
whether RPM tracks file types closely enough to notice this?
I really have no idea what level of detail is in its database...

			regards, tom lane