[yocto] Pointless unlink-link in strip_execs?

[Kaz Kylheku]

Hi,

I'm looking at meta/lib/oe/package.py, function strip_execs, under Yocto 
2.5.

It has this tidbit:

                     if s.st_ino in inodes:
                         os.unlink(file)                     # <--- of 
interest
                         os.link(inodes[s.st_ino], file)     #
                     else:
                         # break hardlinks so that we do not strip the 
original.
                         inodes[s.st_ino] = file
                         bb.utils.copyfile(file, file)
                         elffiles[file] = elf_file

If s.st_ino is in the inodes dictionary, doesn't that mean that the 
paths
inodes[s.st_ino] and file are already hard links to the same object?

In other words, those two link and unlink lines don't achieve anything?

Also, if the file is not in the inode list now, it could be unique.
Why would we waste time copying a file that might turn out unique? Don't 
we want
the logic to be "if we have seen this inode already, then copy-on-write
the file?"

Also if the file is unique and we do copyfile(file, file), then the 
original
inode is gone, isn't it? The original s.st_ino is garbage (and may be 
re-used
by the filesystem for some new, unrelated object), yet we continue to 
have
an entry for it in inodes[s.st_ino].

I'm probably missing some contextual subtlety, but it seems worth a 
review.

Cheers ...