"Provides" and alternatives in packages.d.o (was: /bin/mail)

[Simon Paillard <spaillard@debian.org>]

Hi,

On Fri, Mar 07, 2014 at 03:25:48PM +0100, Franco Martelli wrote:
> Searching for "/bin/mail" in
> http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages.en.html#search_contents doesn't
> return the "mailutils" package as answer. FYI

There are several issues on the way to fullfil your expectation:
1/ /usb/bin/mail is the usual path

2/ /usr/bin/mail is handled through alternatives, which are not taken into
account by packages.debian.org because to deep inside the packaging 
https://packages.debian.org/sid/amd64/mailutils/filelist

3/ mailtutils "provides" mailx, but this doesn't specify a path as such
https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-relationships.html#s-virtual
In the specific case of mailx, this is /usr/bin/mailx 

If you had to rephrase your need, would you tell that you are looking for a
package that "provides" you the mail or mailx command ? (however this is
achieved in Debian) 


-- 
Simon Paillard