The essential status of awk was decided more than 13 years ago.
Sorry, my packaging knowledge is limited, but I don't get it :(
Do you mean base-files is used to ensure that "awk" is essential?
Yes, exactly. base-files depends on awk, base-files is essential.
Therefore, you will always have some "awk" installed.
I might be missing something vital, but is that the proper way to make a package
essential, although a package header exists:
Essential: yes
That's valid only for real packages.
Package 'awk' is purely virtual. Neither gawk nor mawk, which provides
awk, are essential. Care to help me understand?
The predependency of base-files on awk will ensure that you always have
some "awk" installed and working, but the system does not force the user
to install any of them in particular. That's why neither gawk, mawk or
original-awk is essential by itself.
None the less, base-files does _not_ need awk att all. tail and cut
(smaller canons) from coreutils (which _is_ essential) will do the job
nicely.
Yes, but since awk is essential, I prefer the awk way of doing things.
It looks more readable to me.
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