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Re: Bug#65320: gettext: fails on postinst



On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, Peter S Galbraith wrote:

> > Toby Speight <streapadair@gmx.net> writes:
> >
> > > Rob> If this were in fact "safe", then we could think about changing
> > > Rob> debian-emacs-policy to fully eliminate the requirement that packages
> > > Rob> that have emacs components *depend* on emacsen, but instead they
> > > Rob> just check for /usr/lib/emacsen-common/emacs-package-install, and if
> > > Rob> found, run it.  This is certainly more flexible, but I'm wondering
> > > Rob> if there are nasties that I'm overlooking.
> > >
> > > What happens if emacsen is installed *after* package 'foo' that uses
> > > it?  AIUI, foo won't get its emacs components configured at all then.
> >
> > I think you may have hit the nail on the head.  I wasn't thinking
> > about the fact that emacsen-common doesn't re-run all the scripts when
> > it itself is installed.
>
> I'm confused.
>
> I'd think most packages _already_ check for
> /usr/lib/emacsen-common/emacs-package-install before running, at least
> if they use debhelper:
>
> # Automatically added by dh_installemacsen
> if [ "$1" = "configure" -a -x /usr/lib/emacsen-common/emacs-package-install ]
> then
>         /usr/lib/emacsen-common/emacs-package-install gri
> fi
>
> Also, when I install a new flavour of Emacs, all the elisp files of
> add-on package get byte-compiled correctly.  So I think this is okay.
>
> What am I missing?

The problem is that:

* emacs-package-install does only work if emacsen-common has been
previously configured (which I think it truly deserves a wishlist bug
against emacsen-common).

* Some packages, like gettext, have a *minima*l dependency on emacsen,
which, IMHO, does not deserve a Depends field (a bug in policy if
policy mandates a Depends), but of course a bug in gettext if we think
policy is perfect (I don't think it is).

* dpkg configures packages in an order which satisfies their dependencies.
Since gettext does not depend on emacsen-common, dpkg sometimes tries
to configure gettext and then emacsen-common. This is the wrong order
and it fails, but only because emacs-package-install is not smart
enough.

* gettext does not need a Depends, it just needs a better
emacs-package-install implementation, namely, one that does not fail
if emacsen-common has not been configured yet.



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