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Re: Vanishing /usr/doc symlink



>>"Santiago" == Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es> writes:

 Santiago> Manoj Srivastava wrote:
 >> >>"Joey" == Joey Hess <joey@kitenet.net> writes:
 >> 
 Joey> Can you even guarantee that all the postinsts in Debian will deal
 Joey> correctly with a missing /usr/doc? That code path has not had much
 Joey> testing.
 >> 
 >> I think it is reasonable to expect a package to be able to do
 >> rm -rf  /usr/doc/$package; ln -s ../share/doc/$package /usr/doc/$package
 >> in current policy.

 Santiago> How can that be reasonable? It assumes that /usr/doc exist,
 Santiago> but current policy does not say anywhere that /usr/doc
 Santiago> should exist.  Unless the package includes /usr/doc itself
 Santiago> or creates it (in which case it would be a bug), no, I
 Santiago> don't think it's reasonable to assume that /usr/doc should
 Santiago> exist.

	From the policy:
======================================================================
13.4. Accessing the documentation
---------------------------------

     Former Debian releases placed all additional documentation in
     `/usr/doc/<package>'.  To realize a smooth migration to
     `/usr/share/doc/<package>', each package must maintain a symlink
     `/usr/doc/<package>' that points to the new location of its
     documentation in `/usr/share/doc/<package>'[1]
======================================================================

	See the ``must''? Each package *MUST* maintain the
 symlink. So, if /usr/doc/ does not exist, then this machine is
 violation of policy. Of course, /usr/doc maybe a symlink
 (/.1/newdisk/doc; for example); but I see that as perfectly
 reasonable to do 
   if [ -d /usr/doc/$package ]; then
       rm -rf /usr/doc/$package
   fi

   if [ -e /usr/doc/$package ]; then 
       rm -f /usr/doc/$package
   fi

   ln -sf ../share/doc/$package /usr/doc/$package

	This is completely policy compliant.

 >> When writing standards documents, and policies, you need to
 >> not just care for the most common case and ignore the outliers.

 Santiago> The common case are those who use debhelper :-) The
 Santiago> outliers are those who cut and pasted from the policy
 Santiago> manual (13.4 Accessing the documentation) to write their
 Santiago> postinst and prerm.

	And the point is?

	manoj
-- 
 Wit is the rarest quality to be met with among people of
 education. William Hazlitt
Manoj Srivastava   <srivasta@debian.org>  <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05  CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B  924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C



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