debian-user trimmed.
On Sat, Aug 19, 2000 at 10:31:14PM +0200, Marco d'Itri wrote:
> On Aug 19, John Ackermann <jra@febo.com> wrote:
> >I heartily agree with Daniel's plea. Eveb a simple listing of what
> >configuration files the package uses (and where they are), and where it
> >stores data (i.e., does it use space in /var) would be a big help.
> less /var/lib/dpkg/info/<package>.list
> If you really care, write a nice wrapper users can use to read the file.
dpkg -L and dpkg -S, obviously.
But consider things like:
] [aj@blae ~]$ dpkg -S /etc/passwd
] dpkg: /etc/passwd not found.
] [aj@blae ~]$ dpkg -S /etc/network/interfaces
] dpkg: /etc/network/interfaces not found.
] [aj@blae ~]$ dpkg -S /etc/apt/sources.list
] dpkg: /etc/apt/sources.list not found.
By my count, about 20% of files in /etc can't be identified as being
managed by a particular package. I imagine there's something similar
in /var.
I made a proposal [0] to address this for cruft years ago, but it got
stalled and died, and I haven't really been updating cruft for about as
long. The "problem" which stalled it was whether it should really invent
its own glob-like patterns, or just use ordinary globs. Having its own
glob-like patterns lets you distinguish between matching only files,
or matching files and directories recursively, which is useful. Not
having its own globs means you don't have to worry about implementing
anything particularly complicated, but means you don't get much
(enough?) expressive power.
I actually think zsh might have independently invented similar globbing
to what I suggested.
If anyone's interested, it might be worth taking up this proposal again
and fixing it (and dpkg).
Cheers,
aj
[0] http://www.debian.org/~ajt/ . Scroll down to "Proposed change to debian
policy...".
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.
``We reject: kings, presidents, and voting.
We believe in: rough consensus and working code.''
-- Dave Clark
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