On Fri, 29 Aug 2003, Ryan Underwood wrote: > > Hello, > > I have a package that Replaces: another package. The former package > stored files in a particular directory (/usr/lib/foo); when the package > is removed, it leaves that directory behind, empty. The new package has > a symlink at that location, instead of a directory. dpkg, however, does > not replace the directory with the symlink. Hence, I have to > specifically check for this situation in maintainer scripts, and remove > the empty directory if it exists. > > Am I way off base here, or would it be robust behavior for dpkg to > replace empty directories with symlinks, files, whatever, if the empty > directory is not claimed by a currently installed package? It could be > argued that the package that left the empty directory behind is broken, > so I'm looking for circumstances in which my proposed behavior would > present a problem.
Nope. Check the dpkg bug list and policy. This is not a feature that will change. Hint: consider when an admin moves a dir to a new location, and places a symlink at the old location.
