Re: keeping files from one version to the other.

[Julian Gilbey <J.D.Gilbey@qmw.ac.uk>]

On Wed, Feb 28, 2001 at 05:42:06PM -0800, Joey Hess wrote:
> Julian Gilbey wrote:
> > No, it isn't at all.  Any configuration files MUST reside in /etc.
> > These are not configuration files (the sorts of things used to
> > configure a package), but score/state files, if I recall correctly.
> > So how about this scheme:
> 
> conffile != configuration file

I know ;-)

> There has been a consensus recently (for reasons that I don't remember
> at the moment) that binary score files and such used by games should not
> be managed as conffiles. That applies to crafty, but crafty is worth an
> exception to the rule (which is not stated in policy anyway) because 
> these files are *big*. 

Yes, because otherwise dpkg bugs you every time you upgrade ;-)

> -rw-rw-r-- root/games  4442112 2001-02-20 22:08:02 ./var/lib/crafty/book.bin
> 
> Requiring these be two copies of that file would be bad. Of course the
> conffiles mechanism will result in multiple copies of it anyway if the
> contents of the file as shipped in the package ever change..

That's a good point: given that there are likely to be multiple copies
of the file anyway, you might as well copy it in the postinst.  You
could always delete the original file, or ask in the postinst whether
you should remove the .dpkg-dist/.dpkg-old version.  And if you're
installing it, you're likely to use it!

So I guess conffile in this case might be a good idea, even though it
isn't really a configuration file.

Why is the file so big, incidentally?!

   Julian

-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

         Julian Gilbey, Dept of Maths, Queen Mary, Univ. of London
       Debian GNU/Linux Developer,  see http://people.debian.org/~jdg
  Donate free food to the world's hungry: see http://www.thehungersite.com/