Re: Virtual packages (was Re: Bug#64006:)
On Thu, Jun 08, 2000 at 01:02:26PM +0200, Santiago Vila wrote:
> > > The same way we say "(POSIX) shell scripts should use /bin/sh and not
> > > /bin/bash" we should probably say "awk scripts should use /usr/bin/awk,
> > > not /usr/bin/nawk".
> >
> > Are there a significant number of pieces of software which depend on
> > nawk?
>
> Do you mean "/usr/bin/nawk" or "an awk which support functions"?
I meant /usr/bin/nawk.
> There are still several scripts in Debian which depend on /usr/bin/nawk.
> All of them should work with /usr/bin/awk.
So I guess we should require them to be /usr/bin/awk.
> > Is there any harm in requiring there to be a nawk -> awk symlink?
>
> That would make /usr/bin/nawk essential (because awk itself is), which
> (IMHO) would be the wrong thing to do.
Why?
> The real question is: Is there any harm in requiring awk scripts to
> use /usr/bin/awk as a common interface?
Not for Debian packages. Yes for locally installed software.
Julian
--
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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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