Re: Bug#32888: marked as done (base: Removing "Obsolete" package base kills a system)

[Nicolás Lichtmaier <nick@debian.org>]

> On Sun, Mar 26, 2000 at 11:14:06PM -0300, Nicolás Lichtmaier wrote:
> > > dpkg-divert --package base-files --divert-to /dev.base/hda /dev/hda
> > 
> >  Ugh.. ugly... 
> > 
> >  The clean solution is to truncate the file list of base, as proposed. This
> > will "release" all the files owned by that package safely, with no danger at
> > all.
> 
> But this will only work as long as the internal format of dpkg's
> database won't change. But I heard it will definitely be changed
> in the future. So how will you deal with this "change"?
> 
> I just wanted to point out a way _without_ changing any
> _internal_ structures. I agree with you that it is ugly. But
> please be careful messing around with dpkg's internals!!!

 Dpkg has no programable interface. Its files have been used and abused by
nearly everyone (and his mother)... and it's not that bad, since it's a
simple and well understood interface.

 And you will do it with this simple shell script code...

if [ -w /var/lib/dpkg/info/base.files -a -s /var/lib/dpkg/info/base.files ]; then
> /var/lib/dpkg/info/base.files
fi

 So if the file is not there anymore, it won't harm anyone.