Re: A Frequently Reported Bug: "process_queue: Assertion `dependtry <= 4' failed." in dpkg

[Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho <gaia@iki.fi>]

On Tue, Aug 17, 1999 at 05:38:04AM +0200, Richard Braakman wrote:
> Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho wrote:
> [...]
> 
> > In the second case,
> >     the package which depends on the virtual package should list
> >     real packages as alternatives to the virtual package so that
> >     the loop no longer includes the virtual package.
> 
> Note you should do this anyway.  See packaging manual section 8.6:

Yes, but you can't work around this bug by just adding some package as
an alternative.  An example:

Package: foo
Depends: bar

Package: baz
Provides: bar
Depends: foo

Package: xyzzy
Provides: bar
Depends: qwerty

Here the correct workaround is *not*

Package: foo
Depends: xyzzy | bar

since the loop foo -> baz -> bar -> foo still includes baz.  One must list
the real package which represents the virtual package in the loop, thus

Package: foo
Depends: baz | bar

is a correct workaround.

I've produced a set of debs to demonstrate this.  They're at
http://www.debian.org/~ajk/debs/ .

-- 
%%% Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho % gaia@iki.fi % http://www.iki.fi/gaia/ %%%

   "... memory leaks are quite acceptable in many applications ..."
    (Bjarne Stroustrup, The Design and Evolution of C++, page 220)