This may be considered a bug or "works as designed", depending on the interpretation of "followSymlinks", but wanted to point out a (design?) flaw in match_tree:

Suppose I want to archive a folder so I specify a very inclusive pattern: "Libs/"

Under 'Libs/' I have a Mac framework named 'Crmsdk'. Mac frameworks are really just directories with a particular structure inside but the interesting aspect for us is that it has symlinks. This is how Crmsdk.framework looks inside (first level):

lrwxr-xr-x  1 flo  staff    23 Oct  1 17:13 CrmSdk -> Versions/Current/CrmSdk
lrwxr-xr-x  1 flo  staff    26 Oct  1 17:13 Resources -> Versions/Current/Resources
drwxr-xr-x  5 flo  staff   160 Jan 15 00:23 Versions

Notice that Resources is a symlink pointing inside the Versions folder.

Now, when I call the path_spec.match_tree() function, regardless of the value of followSymlinks parameter, I can never get the Resources folder as an entry in the result set. Which, someone might argue, is what I should expect because:

• if followSymlinks is True I will get entries like:

Libs/CrmSdk.framework/Resources/CrmRsc2
...
Libs/CrmSdk.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/CrmRsc1
Libs/CrmSdk.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/CrmRsc2

Which is normal because the code is following the symlinks and Resources is just a symlink to Versions/Current/Resources.

• if followSymlinks is False, then Resources doesn't even show up in the results list as a folder after CrmSdk.framework, in other words I get only these entries:

Libs/CrmSdk.framework/Versions/Current/Resources/CrmRsc2

I don't get any Libs/CrmSdk.framework/Resources entries.

This puts me in the impossibility to create an archive of the matched entries that I can unzip on another location and have it recreated the same (because the symlinks are missing).

One may claim that this is a bug and when followSymlinks is False, the Resources folder should be returned in the list of results (clients shouldn't make an assumption about the entries returned: they may be files, folders or symlinks - it's their job to properly handle it). Bottom line is that symlinks are missing in the results list regardless of the flag's value.