Re: Bug#201023: dosemu: purging doesmu wipes out all user data under /var/lib/dosemu)

[Matthew Garrett <mgarrett@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Herbert Xu wrote:

>dpkg --purge is defined as an operation which removes all traces of a
>package.  When you do that, you are taking the responsibility to ensure
>that you have no files under any directories solely owned by that package
>that you wish to keep.

mjg59@vavatch:~$ sudo touch /usr/share/doc/hello/test
mjg59@vavatch:~$ sudo dpkg --purge hello
(Reading database ... 121366 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing hello ...
dpkg - warning: while removing hello, directory `/usr/share/doc/hello'
not empty so not removed.

Your behaviour is gratuitously different, especially in this specific
case where the directory in question is reasonably likely to contain
large amounts of user data associated, but not dependent, upon the
package in question.

-- 
Matthew Garrett | mjg59-chiark.mail.debian.devel@srcf.ucam.org