---
id: "bug-1805"
status: "fixed"
status_updated: "2026-09-24"
status_note: ""
component: "controller"
severity: "unknown"
timestamp: "2026-09-14T05:07:17.752283Z"
last_seen: "2026-09-19T09:00:00Z"
occurrences: 1
files: ["src/controller/meson.build"]
tags: ["meson", "symlink", "custom_target", "relative-path", "build-system", "xce-harness-component"]
related: []
legacy: true
---

# bug-1805: xce-harness-component task 1.1: controller_unit_test had 29 test failures (all in…

## Description
xce-harness-component task 1.1: controller_unit_test had 29 test failures (all in test_test_cli.c/test_xcetest_process_entry.c) after xce_test moved from src/controller/testsuite/ to src/harness/ -- Expected 0 Was 127 and missing xce> prompt

## Environment
_Not recorded (migrated from buglog.json)._

## Reproduction
_Not recorded (migrated from buglog.json)._

## Root cause
A bridging custom_target (xce_test_controller_link) created a symlink via command: ['ln', '-sf', '@INPUT0@', '@OUTPUT0@']. Meson expands @INPUT0@ to a build-root-relative path (harness/xce_test), but a relative symlink TARGET is resolved relative to the SYMLINK OWN DIRECTORY at dereference time, not the ln invocation cwd or the string reference frame it was written in. The resulting symlink at <build_dir>/controller/xce_test therefore looked for <build_dir>/controller/harness/xce_test, which does not exist, causing every subprocess-spawning test (resolve_xce_test_path()) to exec a missing binary (exit 127).

## Fix
FIXED (2026-09-14, xce-harness-component task 1.1). Changed the custom_target command to use the literal relative path ['ln', '-sf', '../harness/xce_test', '@OUTPUT0@'] instead of @INPUT0@, so the symlink text correctly resolves relative to controller/ up to harness/xce_test. Verified: controller_unit_test dropped from 29 failures to 0 (1228 Tests 0 Failures 0 Ignored), confirmed via the Unity binary's own printed summary line, not just meson's aggregate Ok/Fail count.

## Verification
_Not recorded (migrated from buglog.json)._

## References
_Not recorded (migrated from buglog.json)._