Re: Removing self-managed conffiles?
On Sat, Jan 20, 2007 at 01:14:59PM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> On Sat, 20 Jan 2007 18:46:20 +0100, Marc Haber
> <mh+debian-mentors@zugschlus.de> said:
> > On Sat, Jan 20, 2007 at 11:38:39AM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> >> On Sat, 20 Jan 2007 18:17:27 +0100, Marc Haber
> >> <mh+debian-mentors@zugschlus.de> said:
> >> There is no need to fork ucf to create a command that provides
> >> functionality not in ucf.
>
> > the intersection between zmct (zugschlus' magical conffiles tool)
> > and ucf would be non-negligible and a lot of routine stuff would
> > need to be present in both packages.
>
> err, why would there be anything non-negligible beyond a
> single grep call in common? I fail to see why there will be mounds
> and mounds of common stuff -- as the tetex example already
> demonstrates.
I haven't thought about this in the necessary depth. To a newbie DD
who has only been with Debian for six years it looks like ucf is not
completely finished.
> >> And, arguably, this functionality should be in a different script
> >> anyway, perhaps one that can read the simple ucf cache, which,
> >> given the installed base, is unlikely to change from under you.
>
> > Where is the documentation of the stable interface to ucf's cache
> > that is reliable not to change between ucf releases?
>
> My goodness. Are we so lost in ISO 9000 processes that we need
> formal documentation to realize that ucf hash files have a md5sum and
> a file path? And to realize that the hashfile exists on user
> machines, and changing formats will be a major effort now?
ucf could suddenly start to write the hashfile in some other format
while still being able to read the old format. If a change like this
is not coordinated between the hypothetical zmct and ucf, all packages
using zmct will suddenly be RC-buggy.
And I remember you scolding me for using an internal kernel-package
interface back in 2001.
This has nothing to do with ISO900x (which I hate with a passion). It
is about stability.
> Then it is good for you tat the tetex folks hve written the
> (simple) wrapper code for you -- and the complex common part was:
> md5sum=$(grep "$file$" /var/lib/ucf/hashfile | cut -f 1 -d ' ')
I suspect that there is some wrapper code needed anyway which is the
actual hard part (taking care of special cases). Additionally, imagine
this code being scattered away to 100 packages and then some obscure
bug surfacing.
Currently, ucf does a lot less than dpkg does. What ucf does, it does
much better than dpkg. But since there are still things that dpkg
handles quite well while ucf basically says "well, code it yourself",
ucf does not provider conffile like handling as it is advertising in
its package description.
Greetings
Marc
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