Re: Backups in maintainer scripts
Diogo Kollross <diogok_br@yahoo.com.br> schrieb:
> I'm replacing files in the maintainer script of a
> package, but I would like to maintain backups of these
> files. Is there any good practice about that (eg: like
> renaming the old file to filename~ or filename.old)?
filename~ looks like an Emacs backup file, and I routinely delete them
when I find some. I would suggest to use an extension that clearly
indicates "Whodunit" - I use ".postinst-bak" (or ".preinst-bak" etc.).
> I would also like to know if dpkg makes any backups
> when installing packages, and if I can rely on them
> being present when removing a package.
It takes care that no files are lost in the unpacking phase - if
unpacking fails for some reason, dpkg stops and you end up with only the
old files installed. But after that, all memory of older versions are
removed, except that files that were conffiles in the old version and
are nonexistant in the new one are kept.
The .dpkg-old and .dpkg-new files come from conffile handling, see 10.7
in the Policy.
Regards, Frank
--
Frank Küster
Inst. f. Biochemie der Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer
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