Bug#770004: dpkg-maintscript-helper: dir_to_symlink fails when upgrading package that has gone from arch:any to arch:all

[Ondřej Surý]

Control: severity -1 wishlist
Control: reassign -1 dpkg

Hi Guillem,

as discussed with helmut on IRC, I am reassigning back to dpkg with
severity wishlist.

dpkg-maintscript-helper (and dpkg) know the arch of previous package, so
it could support this scenario (and the reverse one).

Thus filling this as a wishlist... feel free to mark it as wontfix or
just document that it won't be supported never ever - both are fine with
me, but of course if you can come up with some solution that would allow
this to work without jumping through the hoops, it would be much
preferred.

Cheers,
Ondrej

On Tue, Nov 18, 2014, at 13:08, Ondřej Surý wrote:
> Hi Guillem,
> 
> thanks for getting back so quickly.
> 
> On Tue, Nov 18, 2014, at 12:24, Guillem Jover wrote:
> > Control: reassign -1 cyrus-imapd-2.4
> > Control: retitle -1 cyrus-imapd-2.4: Insuficient arguments passed to
> > dpkg-maintscript-helper
> > Control: severity -1 serious
> > 
> > On Tue, 2014-11-18 at 08:20:36 +0100, Ondřej Surý wrote:
> > > Package: dpkg
> > > Version: 1.17.21
> > > Severity: grave
> > > File: /usr/bin/dpkg-maintscript-helper
> > 
> > (BTW, if this had been an issue in dpkg, then it would not have been
> > grave, as it would not break unrelated software, just the one currently
> > being acted on.)
> 
> JFTR I have discussed this with Helmut Grohne on #-devel before filling
> the bug.
> 
> > > dpkg-maintscript-helper fails to find the package files when using
> > > dir_to_symlink (and probably vice versa) and upgrading from arch:any
> > > to arch:all at the same time.
> > 
> > dpkg-maintscript-helper only does what it is told. In this case the
> > packaging has not specified a package name (with the required
> > arch-qualifier) to the dpkg-maintscript-helper call, so it cannot
> > infer that you are doing an arch switch. Please read the man page for
> > the command for more details.
> 
> The manpage doesn't say anything about upgrades from arch:any to
> arch:all, just about Multi-Arch?
> 
> > What I've not checked is if debhelper can pass different arguments
> > depending on the maintainer script invoked, which _might_ be required
> > here, but I've not thought about it. Because then you'd probably need
> > to call dpkg-maintscript-helper manually.
> 
> The problem here is more complex - which arch should I pick in the call?
> 
> E.g. should I pass f.e. libcyrus-imap-perl24:$(dpkg
> --print-architecture) to the dpkg-maintscript-helper call?
> 
> Would that work for M-A packages?
> 
> > In any case, definitely a bug in the packaging, and as such reassigning.
> 
> I can definitely fix that in the packaging, but it's going to be a
> horrible hack :(.
> 
> (Personally I think we should have just fixed dh_installdoc
> --link-doc...)
> 
> Cheers,
> -- 
> Ondřej Surý <ondrej at sury.org>
> Knot DNS (https://www.knot-dns.cz/) – a high-performance DNS server
> 
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-- 
Ondřej Surý <ondrej at sury.org>
Knot DNS (https://www.knot-dns.cz/) – a high-performance DNS server