Debian Bug report logs - #58106
dpkg: Lists old (incorrect) section in package database

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Chris Pimlott <pimlottc@null.net>

To: submit@bugs.debian.org

Subject: dpkg: Lists old (incorrect) section in package database

Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2000 17:17:10 -0500

Package: dpkg
Version: 1.6.8
Severity: normal

I needed to unarchive some files compressed in the ace format.  Since
there was no deb available, I downloaded the rpm of unace and used alien
to convert it.  Thus it was installed under section alien.  Shortly
thereafter, I downloaded the unace source and debianized it.  However,
despite having removed the alienized package and installed the new debian
package, which is set to section utils, it still is listed as being in
section alien.

-- System Information
Debian Release: 2.2
Kernel Version: Linux moebius.student.cwru.edu 2.2.14 #5 Fri Feb 4 20:16:02 EST 2000 i686 unknown

Versions of the packages dpkg depends on:
ii  libc6          2.1.3-2        GNU C Library: Shared libraries and Timezone
ii  libncurses5    5.0-5          Shared libraries for terminal handling

Message #10 received at 58106@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Wichert Akkerman <wichert@soil.nl>

To: Chris Pimlott <pimlottc@null.net>, 58106@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#58106: dpkg: Lists old (incorrect) section in package database

Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 00:06:51 +0100

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Previously Chris Pimlott wrote:
> I downloaded the unace source and debianized it.  However, despite having
> removed the alienized package and installed the new debian package, which is
> set to section utils, it still is listed as being in section alien.

I take it you mean it says that in dselect? You need to record the new
package in the available database. Try this:

    dpkg -A unace.deb

That should fix it.

Wichert.

-- 
  _________________________________________________________________
 / Generally uninteresting signature - ignore at your convenience  \
| wichert@liacs.nl                    http://www.liacs.nl/~wichert/ |
| 1024D/2FA3BC2D 576E 100B 518D 2F16 36B0  2805 3CB8 9250 2FA3 BC2D |

[Message part 2 (application/pgp-signature, inline)]

Message #15 received at 58106@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Chris Pimlott <pimlottc@null.net>

To: Wichert Akkerman <wichert@soil.nl>

Cc: 58106@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#58106: dpkg: Lists old (incorrect) section in package database

Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 16:41:52 -0500 (EST)

On Tue, 15 Feb 2000, Wichert Akkerman wrote:

> I take it you mean it says that in dselect? You need to record the new
> package in the available database. Try this:
> 
>     dpkg -A unace.deb
> 
> That should fix it.

	It says that it both dselect and dpkg --status unace.  dpkg -A did
not fix it.  dpkg-deb -I unace.deb confirms that the deb has section
listed as utils but it still shows up as alien.

	Chris Pimlott

Message #42 received at 58106@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Thomas Hood <jdthood@yahoo.co.uk>

To: 58106@bugs.debian.org

Subject: still a bug

Date: 14 Feb 2002 18:19:39 -0500

This bugs still exists.



_________________________________________________________
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Message #51 received at 58106@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Koblinger Egmont <egmont@uhulinux.hu>

To: 58106@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#58106: dpkg: Lists old (incorrect) section in package database

Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2003 22:16:08 +0200 (CEST)

Yeah, well...

Two hours ago I discovered that recent version of dpkg (1.10.10) doesn't
update the Priority and Section fields in its database when performing
package upgrade. Then I found this bugreport.

Since there was no solution submitted here, I began to fix it myself.

Then I found this in include/dpkg-db.h:
enum parsedbflags {
  [...]
  pdb_weakclassification=004, /* Ignore priority/section info if we already have any   */
  [...]
};

Oh, what a surprise! Seems that dpkg explicitely, intentionally decides
not to update these fields.

Then I edited main/processarc.c line 193, removed the
pdb_weakclassification flag from the parsedb() call. Recompiled dpkg, and
wow, it works! It updates the Priority and Section fields!

Took no more than 2 hours for me, despite that I'm completely new to
dpkg's source, and in the mean time I watched TV, ytalked to a friend and
did some other work as well.

<sorry but I cannot resist>

During more than 3 and a half years none of the Debian developers said
even a single word about this bug here. There are many of other bugs as
well, some reported by me, they didn't even get commented in nearly one
year.

This misfeature was explicitely inserted by someone developing dpkg, he
definitely thought this behaviour was better, and left us the choice to do
a one-line fix against this brain-damaged behavior (which I'd rather
called "bug" if it wasn't clear from the source that this behavior is
intentional), but still no-one could say a single word (not even a "hey,
dude, it's a feature!") here in the bug tracker.

If anyone is interested, this is why I do not use Debian and will most
likely never do. There's only one thing I can't understand: why are most
of the Debian users and developers so extremely fscking proud of their
system???

</sorry but I cannot resist>

Message #56 received at 58106@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Josip Rodin <joy@srce.hr>

To: Koblinger Egmont <egmont@uhulinux.hu>, 58106@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#58106: dpkg: Lists old (incorrect) section in package database

Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 17:10:22 +0200

On Wed, Aug 27, 2003 at 10:16:08PM +0200, Koblinger Egmont wrote:
> This misfeature was explicitely inserted by someone developing dpkg

> no-one could say a single word here in the bug tracker.

Has it occured to you that the one who did it isn't watching the bugs,
and that nobody else knows?

Sounds like the most obvious explanation to me.

-- 
     2. That which causes joy or happiness.

Message #61 received at 58106@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Koblinger Egmont <egmont@uhulinux.hu>

To: Josip Rodin <joy@srce.hr>

Cc: 58106@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#58106: dpkg: Lists old (incorrect) section in package database

Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 22:22:43 +0200 (CEST)

On Thu, 28 Aug 2003, Josip Rodin wrote:

> Has it occured to you that the one who did it isn't watching the bugs,

Yes, it has. Maybe he's no longer a debian developer. Maybe he doesn't
even work with computers. There are a lot of possibilities. Hence I didn't
want to blame him (I don't even know who he is), and if I could be
misunderstood, then I do apologize. I don't want to hurt any particular
person or blame anyone. All the nasty things I said was meant to go to the
quality of work of the whole team as a team and organization, not as
individuals. And believe me I wouldn't have written this if this was the
first time I was very disappointed in dpkg's development.

> and that nobody else knows?

I didn't know either.

I spent some time to catch this bug. Not very much time, and definitely a
dpkg-developer would need even much shorter time. I simply can't believe
that the debian team couldn't have spent this much time on this bug in the
last 3.5 years. I'm sure that the question is not whether they can fix the
bug or not, and not whether they have time to do it or not. The question
is whether they care about it or not. The answer is trivial. That's why
I'm so disappointed.

Message #66 received at 58106@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Adam Heath <doogie@debian.org>

To: Koblinger Egmont <egmont@uhulinux.hu>, <58106@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: Re: Bug#58106: dpkg: Lists old (incorrect) section in package database

Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2003 16:12:22 -0500 (CDT)

On Thu, 28 Aug 2003, Koblinger Egmont wrote:

>
> On Thu, 28 Aug 2003, Josip Rodin wrote:
>
> > Has it occured to you that the one who did it isn't watching the bugs,
>
> Yes, it has. Maybe he's no longer a debian developer. Maybe he doesn't
> even work with computers. There are a lot of possibilities. Hence I didn't
> want to blame him (I don't even know who he is), and if I could be
> misunderstood, then I do apologize. I don't want to hurt any particular
> person or blame anyone. All the nasty things I said was meant to go to the
> quality of work of the whole team as a team and organization, not as
> individuals. And believe me I wouldn't have written this if this was the
> first time I was very disappointed in dpkg's development.

This is really a minor issue.  Not many people care about what dpkg thinks the
section and priority of a package are.

> > and that nobody else knows?
>
> I didn't know either.

Well, I did know about the problem, and knew how to fix it.  I've known how to
fix it for well over a year(maybe even 2).  I hadn't, however, because I
didn't know the reason why it was done as such in the past.

> I spent some time to catch this bug. Not very much time, and definitely a
> dpkg-developer would need even much shorter time. I simply can't believe
> that the debian team couldn't have spent this much time on this bug in the
> last 3.5 years. I'm sure that the question is not whether they can fix the
> bug or not, and not whether they have time to do it or not. The question
> is whether they care about it or not. The answer is trivial. That's why
> I'm so disappointed.

A lot of bugs on core packages are easy to fix, per se, but aren't fixed,
because of some backwards-compatibilty reason/excuse.  This is one of those
times.

Also, since dpkg is currently being rewritten, it's best to address such items
there.

ps: The new dpkg isn't far enough along for others to work on it yet.  But it
is progressing rapidly.

Message #71 received at 58106@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Josip Rodin <joy@srce.hr>

To: Koblinger Egmont <egmont@uhulinux.hu>

Cc: 58106@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#58106: dpkg: Lists old (incorrect) section in package database

Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2003 10:59:54 +0200

On Thu, Aug 28, 2003 at 10:22:43PM +0200, Koblinger Egmont wrote:
> > and that nobody else knows?
> 
> I didn't know either.
> 
> I spent some time to catch this bug. Not very much time, and definitely a
> dpkg-developer would need even much shorter time. I simply can't believe
> that the debian team couldn't have spent this much time on this bug in the
> last 3.5 years. I'm sure that the question is not whether they can fix the
> bug or not, and not whether they have time to do it or not. The question
> is whether they care about it or not. The answer is trivial. That's why
> I'm so disappointed.

Sorry but the system doesn't work that way. You are perfectly free to say
"you don't care about my bug, you suck!", but that by itself is rather
unlikely to actually improve the situation.

It has happened before that someone found intentions of IWJ's code dubious.
It has also happened before that someone reverted the code to suit one's own
intentions. It has also happened before that the new code did not predict
a different set of circumstances and broke.

The comments and decisions that have no attached rationale suck, yes,
but you should not decry the wariness of current developers without an
understanding of its causes and intended consequences.

The smart thing to do would be to track down Ian and see if he remembers the
rationale for this. If not, make a list of all situations this code can
affect and test them all changed.

Oh and as far as caring for bugs goes, having to prioritize 678 bug reports
(and counting) is non-trivial.

-- 
     2. That which causes joy or happiness.

Message #76 received at 58106@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Koblinger Egmont <egmont@uhulinux.hu>

To: Josip Rodin <joy@srce.hr>

Cc: 58106@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#58106: dpkg: Lists old (incorrect) section in package database

Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2003 11:37:05 +0200 (CEST)

On Fri, 29 Aug 2003, Josip Rodin wrote:

> Sorry but the system doesn't work that way. You are perfectly free to say
> "you don't care about my bug, you suck!", but that by itself is rather
> unlikely to actually improve the situation.

There are currently 4 dpkg bugs I'm interested in. None of them had any
worthwile comments so far from the developers. This one is 3.5 years old,
the other ones are approx. 9 months old. (These other ones were reported
by me. The fix is either trivial or created and attached by me or both.)
So it seems to me that there's absolutely nothing I can do to improve the
situation. If you believe there's anything I can do, please let me know.

The only thing that makes me believe that it's worthful to submit bug
reports or patches to dpkg is that I see that bugreport of other packages
are maintained far better. I do hope that it'll change for dpkg, too.

> It has happened before that someone found intentions of IWJ's code dubious.
> It has also happened before that someone reverted the code to suit one's own
> intentions. It has also happened before that the new code did not predict
> a different set of circumstances and broke.
> [...]

You're right. I cannot guarantee that my patch is 100% perfect. This is
why I'd like to hear the developers' opinion on this issue. All I can say
is that so far it seems to have no side effects, seems to work right, only
improves dpkg and doesn't introduce new bugs. As soon as I catch a bug
that's introduced my patch I'll add a mark to this bugreport.

> Oh and as far as caring for bugs goes, having to prioritize 678 bug reports
> (and counting) is non-trivial.

Yes, I perfectly agree. This is non-trivial. But, you know, there are
several systems whose developers manage to solve non-trivial issues,
manage to not only prioritize but even solve 678 bugs during 3.5 years.
I chose one of these systems for myself, i.e. not debian. That's it.

Message #89 received at 58106@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Koblinger Egmont <egmont@uhulinux.hu>

To: 58106@bugs.debian.org

Cc: Nathanael Nerode <neroden@twcny.rr.com>

Subject: Re: Debian bug 58106

Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 12:57:17 +0100

Hi,

Since then I always used dpkg (currently 1.10.25) with that patch and faced
no side effect at all.


bye,
Egmont

Message #106 received at 58106-close@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>

To: 58106-close@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Bug#58106: fixed in dpkg 1.13.20

Date: Tue, 30 May 2006 22:17:06 -0700

Source: dpkg
Source-Version: 1.13.20

We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of
dpkg, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive:

dpkg-dev_1.13.20_all.deb
  to pool/main/d/dpkg/dpkg-dev_1.13.20_all.deb
dpkg_1.13.20.dsc
  to pool/main/d/dpkg/dpkg_1.13.20.dsc
dpkg_1.13.20.tar.gz
  to pool/main/d/dpkg/dpkg_1.13.20.tar.gz
dpkg_1.13.20_i386.deb
  to pool/main/d/dpkg/dpkg_1.13.20_i386.deb
dselect_1.13.20_i386.deb
  to pool/main/d/dpkg/dselect_1.13.20_i386.deb



A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is
attached.

Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed.  If you
have further comments please address them to 58106@bugs.debian.org,
and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org> (supplier of updated dpkg package)

(This message was generated automatically at their request; if you
believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive
administrators by mailing ftpmaster@debian.org)


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Format: 1.7
Date: Wed, 31 May 2006 07:43:16 +0300
Source: dpkg
Binary: dpkg dselect dpkg-dev
Architecture: source i386 all
Version: 1.13.20
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: low
Maintainer: Dpkg Developers <team@dpkg.org>
Changed-By: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Description: 
 dpkg       - package maintenance system for Debian
 dpkg-dev   - package building tools for Debian
 dselect    - user tool to manage Debian packages
Closes: 35573 36586 54529 57104 58106 65839 81171 165843 169125 174180 198128 198522 208532 230610 237622 237626 281562 313605 315784 316551 318825 349120 349442 361171 361671 364726 366178 366185 366187 366351 366353 366587 366659 366985 367329 368874 368875 369177 369205
Changes: 
 dpkg (1.13.20) unstable; urgency=low
 .
   [ Frank Lichtenheld ]
   * Add gettext support for the Perl scripts. Based on a patch by
     Nicolas François. Closes: #165843
   * Only print usage information of dpkg-scanpackages on stdout
     if requested explicetly. Use stderr in case of error.
     Closes: #366659
   * Add remarks to dpkg-scansources and dpkg-scanpackages
     man pages about the need to compress the generated files
     to be able to access them via apt. Closes: #65839
   * Allow '+' and '.' in distribution names in Debian changelogs.
     Based on a patch by John Wright.
     Closes: #361171
   * Use the Debian keyring in dpkg-source when checking signatures
     of .dsc files, if available. Closes: #364726
   * Let dpkg-buildpackage pass through all remotely sensible
     -sX options to dpkg-source (-s[nsAkurKUR] currently).
     Closes: #36586
   * Improve the description of --showformat in dpkg-deb
     man page and add a pointer to the complete description
     of the option in dpkg-query.
   * Don't spew out garbage from dpkg-deb, if the second argument
     to -I is a absolute filename. Based on a patch by Ian Eure.
     Closes: #35573
   * Fix --ignore-depends argument value parsing. Closes: #169125
   * Completely remove md5sum diversion madness.  Instead, we Pre-Depend
     on a version of textutils which provides /usr/bin/md5sum.  We rely on
     the logic in coreutils to remove our diversions. Patch by
     Ian Jackson. Closes: #315784, #313605
   * Try harder to detect dependency cycles that contain Provides
     links. Closes: #349120, #349442
   * Update archtable to reflect current archive: Add amd64 and remove
     sh. Closes: #367329
   * Don't claim in dpkg man page that we set DPKG_OLD_CONFFILE and
     DPKG_NEW_CONFFILE on sub shells since we actually don't.
   * Fix printing of user defined fields with --showformat and
     document the existance of this feature in dpkg-query man page.
   * Make --forget-old-unavail more reliable by deleting architecture
     information of removed packages. Patch by Piotr Engelking.
     Closes: #208532
   * When building packages with dpkg-deb give a more useful error
     message in case a conffile entry has leading whitespace. Patch
     by David Lopez Moreno. Closes: #281562
   * Don't drop directories that contain our conffiles too early from
     our file listing. Otherwise we might leave them behind on purge
     if we share them with other packages.
     Closes: #174180, #198128, #198522, #318825, #366178
 .
   [ Nicolas François ]
   * Fix typos in the Russian man pages. Thanks to Stepan Golosunov.
     Closes: #366587
   * Honour tabbing requested via --showformat even if the field to
     be printed is empty. Closes: #361671
   * Flush the terminal's input before prompting what to do with a
     configuration file. Closes: #316551
   * Fix the --force-depends-version option. Closes: #57104
 .
   [ Guillem Jover ]
   * Standarize scripts usage output format and at the same time make
     the strings easier for the translators. Add '--help' and '--version'
     for most of the scripts. Print the usage and version to stdout.
   * Do not strip the epoch from the source:Upstream-Version substvar.
     Closes: #366351
   * Properly check and report lock file existence in install-info.
     Based on patch by Ben Pfaff. Closes: #368874
   * Correct default info directory for '--infodir' in intall-info man
     page (Ben Pfaff). Closes: #368875
   * Print the bogus version and prefix the error message with 'dpkg: '
     when using '--compare-versions'. Closes: #369177
   * Remove duplicated string " , at changelog " in dpkg-parsechangelog's
     debian style parser (Julian Gilbey). Closes: #369205
   * Update the Section and Priority fields in the status file from the
     new packages. We assume that the information from the binary package
     is correct, otherwise it should be fixed there to match the archive
     override file (Koblinger Egmont).
     Closes: #54529, #58106, #81171, #230610, #237622, #237626
   * Bump Standards-Version to 3.7.2 (no changes needed).
   * Add lintian overrides for dpkg, dpkg-dev, dselect and sources.
   * Replace logrotate installation logic with dh_installlogrotate.
 .
   [ Updated dpkg Translations ]
   * Portuguese (Miguel Figueiredo).
   * Polish (Robert Luberda).
   * Hungarian (SZERVÁC Attila).
   * Romanian (Eddy Petrişor).
   * Russian (Yuri Kozlov). Closes: #366353
   * Czech (Miroslav Kure).
   * Simplified Chinese (Kov Tchai). Closes: #366985
   * Swedish (Peter Karlsson).
   * Galician (Jacobo Tarrio).
   * Slovak (Peter Mann).
   * Dutch (Bart Cornelis).
   * Basque (Piarres Beobide). Closes: #366185
 .
   [ Updated dselect Translations ]
   * Polish (Robert Luberda).
   * Basque (Piarres Beobide). Closes: #366187
   * Czech (Miroslav Kure).
   * Romanian (Eddy Petrişor).
 .
   [ Updated man pages translations ]
   * Polish (Robert Luberda).
Files: 
 71c2be87a21a612812143a16fa5346a0 843 admin required dpkg_1.13.20.dsc
 c61937d53f11c61b5fc67684d2e9423a 3033590 admin required dpkg_1.13.20.tar.gz
 89231c55f6b09d775f058e0beb5c1f47 1543222 admin required dpkg_1.13.20_i386.deb
 0e371fd950e1516b8c082547528203ac 504082 admin required dselect_1.13.20_i386.deb
 0fb2886989b0e2a0c0dd58a8bcefe4be 109180 utils standard dpkg-dev_1.13.20_all.deb

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