[Pkg-db-devel] Bug#522767: Bug#522767: Please introduce a db-utils package

[Joerg Dorchain]

On Mon, Apr 06, 2009 at 10:19:23PM +0200, Florian Weimer wrote:
> > in order to always have the latest dbx.x-utils, it would be nice
> > to create a db-utils dummy package which always depends on the
> > latest version of the actual pakcage. This could be similiar to
> > the gcc-package, which always depends upon the latest "real"
> > package.
> 
> The various dbx.x-util packages are incompatible, and each has
> binaries in its own namespace.  I don't think providing a db-utils
> package makes sense at the current stage (where we still have multiple
> Berkeley DB versions in active use).

My idea is to have package without any files, merely having a
depends: line on the latest dbx.x-utils package.

My background for this is that some packages, e.g. torrus, use
berkely db by build-depending on the libdb-dev package (Notice
the package without a version in the name). When the db version
number increases, existing databases have to be manually converted to
the new format, typically by running dbx.x-recover on it (Using
the side effect of automatically updating existing databses to
the latest format).

By having an unversioned db-tulis package, the db_recover
corresponding to the libdb version used to build torrus would be
automatically available to ease or even automatise these upgrades.

This definitivly does not mean to abandon the versioned
dbx.x-utils packages.

Just as the gcc dummy package ensures that typing gcc gives
something useful, i.e. the latest gcc (currently gcc-4.3 4.3.3-3 by
providing /usr/bin/gcc -> gcc-4.3), IMHO a similiar db-utils
package would be useful.

To go further with the analogy, this does not prevent to have gcc
4.1, 4.2 and 4.3 (or even older gccs) installed and working at
the same time.

Bye,

Joerg
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