Bug#2035: dpkg-deb and dpkg share the '-i' flag

["Susan G. Kleinmann" <sgk@sgk.tiac.net>]

Package: dpkg
Version: 1.0.5

I had been under the impression that dpkg-deb was invoked when dpkg itself
was called with certain flags.  If this is the plan, then the '-i' option
to dpkg doesn't follow the plan.  Here are the ambiguities:

dpkg -i <deb>         installs a debian archive
dpkg -I <deb>         prints out an info file.
dpkg --info <deb>     prints out an info file.

BUT:

dpkg-deb -i <deb>     prints out an info file.
dpkg-deb -I <deb>     prints out an info file.
dpkg-deb --info <deb> prints out an info file.

The current man page for dpkg-deb says that one can get info output by
using '-i' or '--info'.  The Usage statement for dpkg-deb says that one
can get info output by using '-I' or '--info'.  Apparently, they are both
right (at present).

If the plan is that dpkg and dpkg-deb should not share any action flags in
common, then dpkg-deb should be fixed so that dpkg-deb -i exits with an
error message.  (And obviously, the man page should be fixed.)

I am using:
ii  base            0.93.6 13   Debian Base System Miscellaneous Files
ii  image           1.2.13 5    Linux kernel binary image.
ii  ldso            1.7.10 1    The Linux dynamic linker, library and utilities

Susan Kleinmann
sgk@sgk.tiac.net