Re: Renaming a package, proper values for replaces/conflicts?

[Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org>]

On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 11:23:40AM +0100, Andreas Metzler wrote:
> When jumping from 4.3 to 4.5 I'd like to rename pgrep to pcregrep and
> to provide seamless upgrades I'd introduce a dummy package pgrep
> depending on pcregrep, however replaces/conflicts gives me a headache.
> 
> Package: pcregrep
> Architecture: any
> Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}
> Conflicts: pgrep(<<4.5)
> Replaces: pgrep(<<4.5)
> 
> Package: pgrep
> Section: oldlibs
> Architecture: all
> Depends: pcregrep
> 
> This looks correct, doesn't it? Any[1] version of pgrep fulfilling (<<4.5)
> is no dummy package and contains /usr/bin/pcregrep, therefore pcregrep
> must conflict with it.

I think you just need Replaces: pgrep (<< 4.5), not Conflicts: at all.
It's a straightforward file conflict. Conflicts: makes the upgrade
painful because it adds extra complexity to the unpack order: this is
why policy recommends against it.

Cheers,

-- 
Colin Watson                                  [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk]