Bug#671496: /usr/bin/apt-ftparchive: undocumented and unusable
Excerpts from Michal Suchanek's message of Wed May 09 12:00:15 +0200 2012:
> Excerpts from David Kalnischkies's message of Fri May 04 18:45:42 +0200 2012:
> > On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 6:06 PM, Michal Suchanek
> > <michal.suchanek@ruk.cuni.cz> wrote:
> > > As the format of apt archives has been changed silently and my
> > > dpkg-scanpackages script generates archives that apt no longer
> > > understands.
> >
> > I don't know about such a change.
> > And there shouldn't be such a change either.
> > Can you give an example so we can fix apt?
>
> It has been reported as bug 644900 and the conclusion was that my
> archive was of unwanted format and hence was not supposed to be usable
> in the first place.
>
> However, there is no spec for apt archives other than implicit
> "readabale by current apt" so when apt was "fixed" that way it would no
> longer read "readable by current apt" from some time past.
>
> >
> > > It's been suggested that I use apt-ftparchive instead since it works out
> > > all the details.
> >
> > That depends.
> > For a "works out details" tool rerepro might be the better option.
> > apt-ftparchive is more for people who want to control the details themself…
> >
Yes, reprepro (with additional p) has some actual documentation which
states clearly what to put where, what is optional and what is required,
etc.
Clear enough that you can actually make a repo with it.
If writing actual documentation for apt-ftparchive is too much work at
least referencing a documented tool would be useful.
Thanks
Michal
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