Re: /usr/doc symlink in new packages

[Stefan Gybas <cab@studbox.uni-stuttgart.de>]

Wichert Akkerman wrote:

> No. For the full explanation read the post with the results from the
> technical committee.

I have read this document (http://www.debian.org/Lists-Archives/
debian-ctte-9908/msg00038.html) at least twice before I posted the
original question but could not find a reason why it should not work.
And I have tested this with my linuxconf-* packages (I know, you don't
like Linuxconf) and found no problem.

AFAICS dpkg has 2 problems with this issue:

1. dpkg can't replace a directory with a symlink

2. dpkg does not know about multiple paths to the same file (i.e. it first
   creates a file at the new location and then removes the very same file
   again via the old location)

The first one is not a problem as there has never been a directory to
replace (as I already said in my first message) - the second one is
neither:

There are no files under /usr/doc/$package/ in the package, just this
symlink. Otherwise packages like ${package}-extras and ${package}-i18n
which both provided a symlink in /usr/doc/ to /usr/doc/$package would
never have worked. I see no difference between a symlink to
/usr/doc/$package and a symlink to /usr/share/doc/$package (and now an
additional symlink in /usr/share/doc/ to /usr/share/doc/$package).

So what is the exact reason why you think this will not work?

-- 
Stefan Gybas