Bug#40706: AMENDMENT 17/7/99] /usr/share/doc vs. /usr/doc transition

[Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org>]

Hi,
>>"Richard" == Richard Braakman <dark@xs4all.nl> writes:

 Richard> That should be postinst and prerm, to stay out of dpkg's
 Richard> way.  If you remove it only in the postrm, then you will
 Richard> break downgrades to pre-FHS versions.

        I shall so amend the proposal. 

 Richard> To be completely correct, the symlink should also be removed
 Richard> in the postrm if it is called with "disappear", because the
 Richard> prerm is not called in that case.  It is rare for packages
 Richard> to disappear, however.

        I shall add this paragraph too.

 Richard> I think the symlink should be absolute, not relative.
 Richard> /usr/doc is a likely directory to be symlinked to somewhere
 Richard> else by the sysadmin (for example, to deal with this
 Richard> transition :-), and the normal reason for using relative
 Richard> links (that the link should still work if the filesystem is
 Richard> mounted in an unusual place) is not very important here.

        Hmm. I am almost convinced. Opinions, folks?

 Richard> This seems unnecessarily complex.  You do not need to change
 Richard> the directory.

        Well, it makes me feel better when creating symbolic links. 
        
 Richard> One problem remains: There is no $package variable available
 Richard> when the maintainer scripts are run.  The package name will
 Richard> have to be hardcoded in the scripts, and for multi-binary
 Richard> packages that will be rather more work than is advertised.

        For multi binary packages I tend to have separate installation
 script for each binary package. Is that not the case generally? (I
 also tend to have the package name in a lot of maintainer scripts, as
 well as the version, but that does not seem to be the norm).

        Would something like this help?

PACKAGES="package_A package_B package_C"
for package in $PACKAGES; do
   if [ -d /usr/doc ]; then
     if [ ! -e /usr/doc/$package -a -d /usr/share/doc/$package ]; then
       ln -s /usr/share/doc/$package /usr/doc/$package
     fi
   fi
done

        manoj
-- 
 "Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies." Honore de
 Balzac
Manoj Srivastava   <srivasta@debian.org>  <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
Key C7261095 fingerprint = CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05  CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E