Bug#268154: apt-get: Upgrading should offer runninf a diff program, not just (D)
Package: apt
Version: 0.5.27
Severity: normal
The upgrade asks many times questions like these:
Configuration file `/etc/squirrelmail/apache.conf'
==> Modified (by you or by a script) since installation.
==> Package distributor has shipped an updated version.
What would you like to do about it ? Your options are:
Y or I : install the package maintainer's version
N or O : keep your currently-installed version
D : show the differences between the versions
Z : background this process to examine the situation
It makes upgrade process to require quite a much work, because of
the manual method the conflicts are resolved:
Type D to see what's changed
Type Z to shell out and manually do all the work, launch
the editor, load the files, compare, diff, merge, reject
The situation could be helped if APT offered a new selection:
M : run Merge program
Where the program and it's arguments could be defined in /etc/apt.conf.
There could be comment in /etc/apt.conf how to launch emacs to handle
changes with ediff.el etc.
emacs --no-windows --no-init-file --no-site-file \
--load ediff \
--execute "(ediff \"%FILE%\" \"%FILE%.dpkg-dist")"
Where %FILE% were the name of the configuration file which APT would
substitute when using the defined call program.
Jari
-- Package-specific info:
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.4.26.20040601
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (ignored: LC_ALL set to en_US)
Versions of packages apt depends on:
ii libc6 2.3.2.ds1-16 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii libgcc1 1:3.4.1-7 GCC support library
ii libstdc++5 1:3.3.4-9 The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
-- no debconf information
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