Bug#322348: /etc/init.d/apache script wasn't removed by postrm
On Tue, 01 Nov 2005 11:09:27 -0500
Adam Conrad <adconrad@0c3.net> wrote:
> I think you're confusing the first and last columns...
You were right. Thanks; that correction helps. What it says here[1]
confirms it:
The exact format for the "Status:" field is:
Status: Want Flag Status
Where Want may be one of unknown, install, hold, deinstall, purge. Flag
may be one of ok, reinstreq, hold, hold-reinstreq. Status may be one of
not-installed, unpacked, half-configured, installed, half-installed
config-files, post-inst-failed, removal-failed. {...}
...so the 'Status(Want)' field is not the 'Status(Status)'
field. I've misused the term 'deinstalled', or rather 'Status
(deinstalled)'; sorry about that.
Despite this goof, and at the possible risk of offending with further
errata, I'm afraid your correction has thrown out the baby with the
bathwater -- the "baby" being the prior part of my last message about
the 'Status (Status)' field terms being merely contrary, despite
being written as if they were actually contradictory.
To recap, (using some bits just learned about 'Status(Status)'
fields), 'Status(installed)' is defined as ALL files present, and
'Status(not-installed)' is defined as NO files present. Those
definitions are contrary to each other, but common usage of 'not-'
properly indicates a contradiction[2].
Your first post said: "sure it's installed", which does not agree
with respect to those 'Status(Status)' definitions. The error very
probably stems from confused nomenclature in the "Status: Want Flag
Status" data structure.
It matters because these nomenclature bugs will continue to confuse
users. These probably can't be fixed outright, (it's a bit late to
easily change any 'Status(Status)' field names to something better), but the
bugs could (eventually) be identified, acknowledged and documented with
caveats or warnings where appropriate.
NB: this supposed Nomenclature That Breeds Confusion[3] is not an 'apache'
bug, but bugs start where they're found. Which is not to suggest that
right here is the proper forum to continue to address possible new
bugs beyond the point of introduction.
[1] dpkg technical manual
Chapter 1 - Quick summary of dpkg's external interface
1.2 The dpkg status area
/usr/share/doc/libapt-pkg-doc/dpkg-tech.html/ch1.html
...in package 'libapt-pkg-doc'.
[2] This book has a decent recent treatment of contraries vs. contradictions:
Logic made easy / Deborah J. Bennett.
New York : W.W. Norton & Co., 2004.
[3] A favorite example: the electrical terms 'positive' and 'negative',
after the advent of atomic theory, which they predate -- it turned out
the terms have it backwards, in a way. There's a chapter on that in:
Scientists' Nightmares : The Baffling, the Fake, & the Unsolvable
George O. Smith / Putnam Publishing Group, 1972
And a feisty revisionist essay on the same topic:
WHICH WAY DOES THE "ELECTRICITY" REALLY FLOW?
(C)1996 William Beaty
http://www.amasci.com/amateur/elecdir.html
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