dpkg internally uses the available version to distinguish the version that is proposed to be installed (with dpkg -i or --unpack) from the version currently present. Originally it seemed appropriate that the available information shown (eg) in dselect would be updated during this operation as well.
But I think that this has now outlived its time, even if it was ever right. So it is fine to make dpkg not read or write the available file. It will still obviously update its internal `available' data during installation but this won't ever end up on disk. I have eyeballed the patch and it doesn't look unreasonable, although if there is any doubt it would be best to check the context for each of those patch hunks since it's not clear from just the patch whether each change is correct. Also, we should note that after this change the `available' in-memory data facility from the lib/* files in dpkg is used for quite different purposes by dpkg and dselect. This may be confusing but is best left alone I think. I hope you find these comments helpful :-). Regards, Ian. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
