Re: New dpkg overwrite behaviour undesirable
Kai Henningsen writes:
>
> andrew@toaster.it.com.au (Andrew Howell) wrote on 31.03.96 in <m0u3Lcb-0005ljC@toaster.it.com.au>:
>
> > Kai Henningsen writes:
>
> > > If a new package wants to overwrite files of an old package, it usually
> > > has a reason to. Simply dropping the new file is almost always wrong.
> > > Simply overwriting (the old behaviour) isn't good, but is certainly better
> > > than dropping.
> >
> > I disagree, this with proper use of Replaces and Conflicts this shouldn't
> > be a problem.
>
> That way, you may keep the conflict from happening. If it happens, it's
> still the wrong solution to drop the new file.
I don't understand what your saying. Course your going to stop the conflict
from happening you have Conflicts: fields, that's what they are for :)
Why is it the wrong solution? If the file is to be installed it should
be done properly. This is why 1.1 isn't released yet. We should identify
package which conflict like this and have both packages updated so one
of them doesn't contain the file, and the one that does conflicts with
older versions of the other package.
What is the problem with doing this?
> If you disagree that dropping the new file is wrong, please explain why.
Because I think it's inherently bad for a file to be replaced by another
package without any prior warning. The whole point of this new behaviour
was to stop files being overwritten by other packages unless they were
told they could be overwritten. So are you saying this is wrong? Do you
want to drop the entire idea?
Andrew
--
Dehydration - 34%, Recollection of previous evening - 2%, embarrassment
factor - 91%. Advise repair schedule:- off line for 36 hours, re-boot
startup disk, and replace head - wow, what a night!
-- Kryten in Red Dwarf `The Last Day'
Andrew Howell howellaa@cs.curtin.edu.au
Perth, Western Australia andrew@it.com.au andrew@debian.org
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