Bug#34652: PROPOSAL] Policy is not clear about nawk.
> > Santiago Vila wrote:
> > > The bug:
> > > =======
> > >
> > > The /usr/doc/debian-policy/virtual-package-names-list.text.gz file says:
> > >
> > > awk Anything providing suitable /usr/bin/{awk,nawk}
> > >
> > > So: Is "nawk" an approved virtual package name or not? It appears in the
> > > right-hand side but not in the left-hand side!
> >
> > I don't see the problem. awk is a virtual package that provides the
> > binaries /usr/bin/awk and /usr/bin/nawk, both of them new awks.
> > There's no bug anywhere.
>
> Well, I withdrawn the proposal for now.
>
> I do not withdraw the bug: If every awk in the system is already a "new
> awk", why do we need /usr/bin/nawk at all?, we could use always
> /usr/bin/awk and it would always work.
>
> Is there a rationale somewhere?
>
> Maybe we should check what does POSIX say about /usr/bin/awk (does it
> have to be a new awk?) and act accordingly.
Well, the mawk manpage seems to suggest that POSIX defines an
extension of new awk. The UNIX98 description seems to make no
comments about the relation between its specs of awk and the AWK
book. What are the differences between the old and new awks? Maybe
we could check them out -- should be very easy.
Does anyone expect there to be a nawk program? If so, this suggestion
is moot. If not, we can probably just do away with it.
Whichever way, though, we should think about this and do something:
either close this bug report or remove nawk from the system.
Julian
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Julian Gilbey, Dept of Maths, QMW, Univ. of London. J.D.Gilbey@qmw.ac.uk
Debian GNU/Linux Developer, see http://www.debian.org/~jdg
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