Bug#2452: ncurses problem is related to "dpkg" bug

[Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.chu.cam.ac.uk>]

Bruce Perens writes ("Bug#2452: ncurses problem is related to "dpkg" bug"):
> From: Michael Alan Dorman <mdorman@lot49.med.miami.edu>
> > David's right---ncurses is a symlink to ., that way ncurses/curses.h
> > will work, as would curses.h.
>
> OK - now I see what happened to my system that makes it different from
> David and Ian's systems, and it looks like a "dpkg" bug.  My system
> contains a directory /usr/include/ncurses, which itself contains
> curses.h.bak and nothing else. No doubt this is left over from a
> previous installation, and the directory was not removed because I once
> edited curses.h and the .bak file was left there by the editor. Thus,
> dpkg did not install the symbolic link, and what's more _dpkg did not
> complain about the situation_, and _still does not complain_.

dpkg is quite careful with symlinks to directories, because being
gung-ho with them can result in whole sections of filesystem being
wiped out, or with large portions of packages being mis-installed.

It's hard for me to say whether you've actually found a bug here
without more details, but it seems likely to me that what is required
here is for the package postinst &c to make sure everything is set up
correctly.

Ian.