On Sun, Sep 15, 2002 at 11:53:55PM +0200, Wichert Akkerman wrote: > Previously Marc Singer wrote: > > Apparently, both programs write the file. If both accept an empty > > file, what is the harm in both of them creating it when it doesn't > > exist? > > The file not existing indicates major breakage or a bad install. > In both cases aborting is a sensible thing to do.
...or someone is using apt to build a secondary cache of packages. I can see that there is much resistance to changing this behavior. Can you see how this makes it difficult to use dpkg and apt in new ways? While there is some flexibility granted by the configuration tree, both packages appear to make the assumption that they are installing to the filesystem where they are executing *and* that the applications were already installed there. I'm working on a method of creating a root filesystem for an embedded system. I have been working around these assumptions. Yet, can you see utility in relaxing these behaviors?
