Re: policy suggestion (seeking discussion)
On Sun, Apr 26, 1998 at 04:34:35PM -0400, Raul Miller wrote:
> Enrique Zanardi <ezanardi@ull.es> wrote:
> > I'm not a dpkg expert, but AFAIK modifying directly the dpkg databases
> > (yes, almost everything under var/lib/dpkg are dpkg databases) is a
> > Wrong Thing (TM) In the current implementation those databases are
> > ASCII files, but that may change (and surely _will_ change) in the
> > future, so relying in that format will cause compatibility problems.
> > The right way to solve that issue is by adding an(other) option to
> > dpkg.
>
> Um...
>
> I don't like the idea of making dpkg itself yet more complicated.
>
> I think it's reasonable to supply an independent tool which serves
> this purpose. [I think it's reasonable to do this for every instance
> where dpkg must run while dpkg is already running.]
Well, there's a way to fit both needs (not complicating dpkg itself, and
not editing databases directly). Use libdpkg (or dpkg-perl, or
dpkg-python, or...). I have used it for simple database manipulations
(mainly reading pkg info) and it works fine. I'm sure everybody will
benefit if we use (and debug, and document) those tools in our little
projects. That way, as far as the API remains unchanged the database
format can evolve without breaking anything.
Thanks,
--
Enrique Zanardi ezanardi@ull.es
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