On Fri, Apr 17, 1998 at 10:18:17PM +0200, Christian Schwarz wrote:
> On 17 Apr 1998, Adam P. Harris wrote:
> > > If was thinking of the following: the current doc-base version
> > > creates some `extra files' in other package's /usr/doc
> > > directories--for example, the .dhelp files. Usually, the package
> > > should call doc-base in its prerm script and doc-base will remove
> > > these files again. However, if either the maintainer forgot to call
> > > doc-base in its prerm script,
...then there's a bug in the prerm script that needs to be fixed.
The intention of the extrafiles list was more descriptive than proscriptive,
ie to provide a list of files that the package would end up using; not to
make dpkg actually *do* anything about them.
There are a couple of points for this approach:
* there's no change in the semantics of the non-query options of dpkg;
--install, --remove and --purge still mean *exactly* what they meant
before.
* this means extrafiles control files won't cause /any/ problems on
systems with an `old' version of dpkg.
* by the same token, this will allow extrafiles to include /all/ files
packages maintain, rather than requiring maintainers to exclude the
files that ought to be left on the system even when the controling
package is removed or purged.
* it keeps it very easy to implement this proposal.
> > > or if there is a bug in doc-base,
> > > these files would be left on the system.
In which case, IMHO, they shouldn't be covered up by dpkg, they should
be reported as cruft, and a bug report filed.
> No, that's not the point. (Please correct me if I'm wrong again.) If a
> package does not provide a .dhelp file itself, doc-base will create this
> file automatically. Only doc-base knows about that file, and if everything
> is working correctly, doc-base will remove that file again if the package
> is removed.
>
> However, if you purge doc-base now, it will not remove that file (at
> least, the latest version of doc-base I wrote would behave that way). With
> that, the user would end up with a /usr/doc/foo/.dhelp file of which noone
> knows about.
Which I think is a bad thing in itself.
In particular, if foo is now upgraded, and assuming it doesn't include a
.dhelp file of its own, when it attempts to inform doc-base that all its
documents have been changed, it'll fail; leaving dhelp unaware that half
a dozen of its entries are pointing at the wrong files.
Cheers,
aj, because to get anywhere in -policy you have to disagree with everything
Christian says, right? ;)
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. PGP encrypted mail preferred.
``It's not a vision, or a fear. It's just a thought.''
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