Hi, On Fri, 11 Jan 2008, Joey Hess wrote: > Determining a file's type from its extension is "weak and specific"? > Tell that to /var/lib/dpkg/info/*.p*. Tell that to everyone who has run > dpkg -i *.deb and managed to not accidentially dpkg -i *.a (both ar files > after all).
At that point it's ok I guess. But for example when dpkg-deb creates the package, it would be nice if it could just find out the right extension to use. Since dpkg-deb only has a directory as parameter, it would be nice to have the Package-Type: in the DEBIAN/control file there. Since you absolutely don't wan't Package-Type there we don't have many solutions: - either dpkg-deb drops the Package-Type field by himself at that point (requires rewriting of the control file by dpkg-deb, not really trivial) - or we use another temporary marker (for example an empty is_udeb file in the DEBIAN directory that wouldn't be included in control.tar.gz by dpkg-deb) and we don't push Package-Type: udeb in the binary package but instead create the marker above Guillem, what other use cases did you intend for Package-Type: udeb in the binary itself? Would one of the above solutions be reasonable? Does it make sense to go that far just to be able to give the correct name automatically? > Um, all I got from your communication on this subject was that you would > make it an official field, not that you would put it *in* the binary > package. Note that putting it in the Changes files doesn't make sense either. So it's really a field that is only used as a marker for debhelper to do the right thing. It shouldn't be copied anywhere in general. Cheers, -- Raphaël Hertzog Le best-seller français mis à jour pour Debian Etch : http://www.ouaza.com/livre/admin-debian/
