On Saturday 10 March 2007 21:37, Justin Pryzby wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 10, 2007 at 08:05:55PM +0100, Magnus Holmgren wrote:
> > Something I've been thinking about:
> >
> > If two packages share a /var/(lib|run|log) subdirectory, how do you know
> > when to remove it? I reckon that it should be removed when the last of
> > the packages has been purged. Both packages place files there at runtime,
> > so dpkg won't remove it since it's nonempty. But you can't just remove it
> > in postrm if it's empty. Do you:
> >
> > a) leave it alone; let root delete it manually when it's no longer needed
> > b) use dpkg -S to see if it's still in use
> > c) use dpkg -l to see if the other package is still installed
> > d) avoid sharing directories under /var
> > e) do something else?
>
> The easy thing to do is to include it in the package, rather than
> creating it in maintainer scripts. Then dpkg leaves it alone if another
> package also includes (and in recent releases may even succeed in not
> warning you). I think there are cases where it is advantageous not to
> include it, but they don't occur to me presently..
The directory is included in the packages, that's why I wrote that dpkg won't
remove it. The problem is that postrm purge is called after dpkg removes the
last of a package's files. Thus we have to delete not only the files, but
also the directories, that are not deleted already in postrm remove.
--
Magnus Holmgren holmgren@lysator.liu.se
(No Cc of list mail needed, thanks)
"Exim is better at being younger, whereas sendmail is better for
Scrabble (50 point bonus for clearing your rack)" -- Dave Evans
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