Homebrew up-to-date, but do I need to worry about `could not link` + `delete path` errors?

Question

I've used homebrew to install rvm and ocaml packages successfully, but I've always wondered about the errors at the end of $ brew update output. For example, when I ran it just now the bash output was:

Error: Could not link:
/usr/local/etc/bash_completion.d/brew

Please delete these paths and run `brew update`.
Error: Could not link:
/usr/local/share/doc/homebrew

Please delete these paths and run `brew update`.
Error: Could not link:
/usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions/_brew

Please delete these paths and run `brew update`.
Error: Could not link:
/usr/local/share/man/man1/brew-cask.1
/usr/local/share/man/man1/brew.1

My colleagues say not to worry about it, but... I worry about it. What can I do to fix them? Just run rm and completely obliterate the "delete me" paths, and mkdir the paths that cannot be linked?

Answer 1

All the specified files are just symlinks, so don't worry, just remove them.

To make sure that they are symlinks, you can run this:

file -h <what you want to inspect>

Answer 2

This worked for me:

../usr/local/..$rm -rf /usr/local/share/doc/homebrew

and then

../usr/local/..$brew upgrade