Bug#35573: [rhertzog: Re: Bug#35573: dpkg: dpkg --info <two_or_more_deb_files> returns garbage]

[Michele Bini <mibin@tin.it>]

On Sun, Apr 04, 1999 at 02:20:28PM +0200, Raphael Hertzog wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I was responding to your bug submission but I did get a bounce, your
> mailer wasn't correctly configured !

I am sorry.
I'm having existential (To be or not to be?) problems with exim :)

> > This bug seems trivial to reproduce:
> > 
> > 'dpkg --info <deb_file>' works fine, but,
> > 'dpkg --info <deb_file1 deb_file2 ...>' returns an output
> > similar to 'cat /dev/urandom'
> 
> This commande will never do what you expected. Read the man page :
[...]

Thanks, this behaviour is documented but not consistent
with other operation on debfiles which accept multiple debs
(--install or --unpack). However this cannot be changed
without breaking backward compatibility. The problem is
another, see below.

> 
> The second argument may not be a second package filename but the
> name of the control-file to look for. And if the name isn't valid
> it produces an error like that :
> ~@p200$ LC_ALL=C dpkg -I perl-base_5.005.02-2_i386.deb deb
> dpkg-deb: `perl-base_5.005.02-2_i386.deb' contains no control component `deb'
> dpkg-deb: at least one requested control component missing
> 
> I'm using dpkg 1.4.0.34 here.
> 
> I think that you should give us the precise command-line that produced 
> the strange ouput ...

ah, it is probably caused by fixed-lenght buffer to store
filenames, as it only happens when the file is long, that
is it happens if I do: (ppp* matches ppp_ and pppconfig_)

	bash$ dpkg -I /amnt/cd/debian/stable/main/binary-i386/base/ppp*
	!<arch>
	debian-binary   897684020   0     0     100644  4         `
	2.0
	control.tar.gz  897684020   0     0     100644  769       `
	<long garbage follows, i won't include it for your safety>

but not if I do:

	bash$ cd /amnt/cd/debian/stable/main/binary-i386/base/
	bash$ dpkg -I ppp*
	dpkg-deb: `ppp_2.3.5-2.deb' contains no control component
	`pppconfig_1.1.deb'
	dpkg-deb: at least one requested control component missing


-Michele