Bug#1290: dpkg 0.93-70 leaves catman confusion
Bill Mitchell writes ("Bug#1290: dpkg 0.93-70 leaves catman confusion"):
> Currently, the cpio package and mt-st package both provide
> /usr/bin/mt and /usr/man/man1/mt.1. Also, they don't currently
> declare a conflict with one another. I noted confusion after the
> following command sequence:
>
> dpkg --install cpio.deb
> man mt
> dpkg --install mt-st.deb
> man mt
>
> I was shown the mt man page from cpio, not the one from mt-st which I
> had expected
>
> The mt man page from cpio was still present in /var/catman/cat1/mt.1.gz.
> That's what I was seeing, even though /usr/man/man1 contained mt.1
> istalled from the mt-st package.
>
> I note that the last-modified time of /usr/catman/cat1/mt.1.gz is
> the time it was installed, while the last modified time of
> /usr/man/man1/mt.1 is apparently the last-modified time of
> that file as installed from the package.
>
> I tried touching /usr/man/man1/mt.1, and then saying "man dpkg",
> but that didn't get the catman file rebuilt.
>
> Two possible solutions:
>
> 1. dpkg cleans up /var/catman when removing packages.
>
> 2. dpkg touches /usr/man files from packages when installing them
> and man rebuilds /var/catman files if they're outdated relative
> to the corresponding /usr/man files.
>
> I favor solution 1, but believe that the man(1) program should also
> implement its part of solution 2.
This is a bug in the man program. It should be written to cope with
source manpages being modified, and automatically regenerate the cat
pages.
A possible solution involving `utime' comes to mind.
Ian.
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