Re: Bug#68661: Should not remove pager's alternative on upgrade

[Brian May <bam@debian.org>]

>>>>> "Stephen" == Stephen Zander <gibreel@pobox.com> writes:

>>>>> "Brian" == Brian May <bam@debian.org> writes:
    Brian> Why doesn't running update-alternatives-jdk1.1 change the
    Brian> status to manual?  -- Brian May <bam@debian.org>

    Stephen> Because it's still manipulating /etc/alternaives through
    Stephen> update-alternatives, the Right Way to do it.

Thats not how I read the code (I must say I was rather surprised when
I first saw it):

make_link_jdk11() {
  if [ -L /etc/alternatives/$1 ]; then
        echo $1
        if [ "$2" = "--auto" ]; then
                update-alternatives --auto $1
        else
                ln -sf /usr/lib/jdk1.1/bin/$1 /etc/alternatives/$1
                ln -sf /usr/share/man/man1/java-jdk11.1.gz /etc/alternatives/${1}.1.gz
        fi
  fi
}

if [ "$1" = "--help" ] ; then
        echo "Usage: update-alternatives-jdk1.1 [--help] [--auto]"
        echo
        echo "Normally, just run as root with no arguments to set links in /etc/alternatives."
        echo "   --help     This usage summary"
        echo "   --auto     Use update-alternatives --auto to set symlinks to defaults"
0        exit
fi

# From jdk1.1-runtime
make_link_jdk11 java $*
[...]

so - why is this not marking it as "manual"?

I didn't notice that --auto option though. Interesting...

    Stephen> Manually manipulating the symlinks at the f/s level is
    Stephen> what causes update-alternatives to mark an alternative as
    Stephen> being in manual mode, the Wrong Way to do it.

The following message would appear to contradict what you have
just said:

&pr("Checking available versions of $name, updating links in $altdir ...\n".
    "(You may modify the symlinks there yourself if desired - see \`man ln'.)")
  if $verbosemode > 0;

Not that I am deliberately shooting holes in your reasoning, I am just
curious how this is meant to work...
-- 
Brian May <bam@debian.org>