On Fri, Apr 10, 1998 at 12:28:17PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava wrote:
> I have one point to add to this. Handling files not mentioned
> in the *.list file was one way of several packages to handle/edit a
> common file, for example, if a bunch of packages need /etc/foo to
> exist, and foo can contain the word bar or bah, then any package, in
> the postinst, finding that /etc/foo did not exist, can question the
> user and create the file (the other packages then accept it).
Thinking about it, I suppose the spelling dictionaries are an easy
example of this. They each provide a /usr/dict/{english,spanish,...}
file, then arrange for the /etc/dictionary symlink to point to an
appropriate place.
I'd only considered the possibility of have each package depend on a
minimal template package (etc_dictionary.deb, say) up until this point.
(although I note that the dictionary packages will be moving to an
alteratives system in slink, so that's not the greatest example).
> I think this may be a useful thing to do. I do not think that
> extrafiles should abrogate this functionality; so I want to add a
> rider that files listed in extrafiles may have more than one owner.
I'm happy either way. Something like the following could be added:
====diff====
] --- proposal.orig Sat Apr 11 04:09:56 1998
] +++ proposal.txt Sat Apr 11 04:11:16 1998
] @@ -27,9 +27,16 @@
] files that aren't distributed with the package, but are instead
] created over the course of a package's presence on a system.
]
] +In some cases, two or more packages may use one or more files to share
] +information. For example, the wordlist packages each manipulate
] +/usr/dict/words and /etc/dictionary to point to a dictionary of the
] +user's choice. In this case, each of the packages should specify the
] +common files as extrafiles, thus claiming a "joint ownership" of
] +those files.
] +
] Files that should be specified in the extrafiles control area file
] include such things as log files, spool directories and their
] -contents, configuration files (in particular those that aren't
] +contents, and configuration files (in particular those that aren't
] conffiles -- see chapter 9).
====diff===
Since there seems to be some controversy over this, if I may put my two
cents in now: I'm not inclined to worry either way. It seems like it'd
be nice to encourage people to split out the common sections of their
packages, but it doesn't seem a useful thing to require, at least at
this point.
Perhaps, presuming extrafiles lists are added to a significant number
of packages, we can use them to see how much trouble it will cause
maintainers if this were to be made a requirement later?
> There fore dpkg --listfiles may return more than one hit.
(dpkg --search, I presume you mean)
And it can already do that in the case of directories, so this doesn't
seem too much of a worry.
Cheers,
aj
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. PGP encrypted mail preferred.
``It's not a vision, or a fear. It's just a thought.''
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