Re: bug #23953 ae: postinst does not check for errors
On 17 Jul 1998, James Troup wrote:
> Dale Scheetz <dwarf@polaris.net> writes:
>
> > > If update-alternatives fails, the install should *not* succeed.
> >
> > And why not? The update-alternatives failure does not impact the
> > further correct installation of the ae package, and after the
> > install ae will function completely as expected when called as
> > "ae". The fact that editor will not envoke the ae editor is, at this
> > point, unavoidable, but not any reason to reject the rest of the
> > install process.
>
> It's not reason to reject the rest of the install process (and that
> isn't the result of set -e in the postinst), it is however reason to
> tell dpkg that something went wrong with configuring ae. Hiding that
> is plain wrong. postinst's are like unix scripts, and an exit code of
> 0 means success. If update-alternatives failed and the editor
> alternative is hosed, the postinst did not succeeded and should not
> pretend it did.
>
The problem isn't in the postinst (I know neither of them use set -e) but
in the preinst script. If that script fails then ae is not installed.
All editors now use update-alternatives to place themselves in the
priority queue for "editor". If update-alternatives is failing then none
of these editors can be installed. This is clearly only going to happen on
a "fried" system. If editing a config file or two will get the system back
on track, I don't want them to have to use ar just to get an editor
installed.
If update-alternatives failes, the ae editor is not hosed, only the
"editor" link is useless. ae can still be called using the "ae" command.
Luck,
Dwarf
--
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