On Sun, 29 May 2011, Santiago Vila wrote: > > > > 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 see. Thanks. > > 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. Alright. Got it now, I think :) > > 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. Ok. > > 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. I see. Matter of taste. Though, you're the maintainer, you decide. Still, tail and cut make use of less resources, compared to awk. Efficiency should, IMO, be a good enough reason to consider. As is the non-use of 'echo' to truncate/touch files shown by the earlier attached postinst.in.patch. Cheers, -- Cristian -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
