Re: /etc/shells management

[Andreas Metzler <ametzler@downhill.at.eu.org>]

Branden Robinson <branden@debian.org> wrote:
[postinst configure]
> On Sat, Sep 06, 2003 at 03:32:58PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
[...]
>>     elif test -z "$2" -o "$2" = "<unknown>"; then

> file:///usr/share/doc/debian-policy/policy.html/ch-maintainerscripts.html
> is my Bible when I'm writing/editing maintainer scripts.  It's
> documented nowhere that I need to handle the argument '<unknown>'.

> Where did you come by this, and if it's something we should worry about,
> why isn't it documented in Policy?
[...]

Quoting policy 3.6.1.0 (3.5.6.1 is identical)
| If there is no most recently configured version dpkg will pass a
| null argument; older versions of dpkg may pass <unknown> (including
| the angle brackets) in this case. Even older ones do not pass a
| second argument at all, under any circumstances.

However handling this seems to be pretty academic, the change happened
in ancient times:
dpkg (1.2.1); priority=MEDIUM
[...]
  * postinst configure now gets null argument (not <unknown> or <none>)
    when there is no previously configured version.
[...]
 -- Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.chu.cam.ac.uk>  Wed, 22 May 1996 01:26:31 +0100

             cu andreas
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