Disappearing symlinks in RPM transaction

[Jos Vos <jos xos nl>]

Hi,

I have a interesting RPM problem that I can't explain (yet).

I have a package, say foo-1-1.  It contains a directory, say /opt/foo

I want to make an update, say foo-1-2, in which /opt/foo is not a
directory anymore, but a symlink, say /opt/foo -> bar.
Just packaging it as such does not seem to work, as the RPM says then:

  error: unpacking of archive failed on file /opt/foo: cpio: rename

So, I tried a workaround and included in foo no /opt/foo at all, but
I included a post-install script:

  %post
  ln -snf bar /opt/foo

Later, I added some tracing (writing output to a file there) and
found out that after at the end of the post-install script the
symlink *does* exist.  But it is gone when the RPM transaction
is finished!

Can someone shed a light on this?  I'm afraid the actual remove
actions for foo-1-1 remove my symlink.  The only thing I want to
do is replacing a directory with a symlink in an update of the
package.  How should I do this?

This is using RPM 4.4.2 on a RHEL5 clone.

Thanks,

--
--    Jos Vos <jos xos nl>
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