Useless cruft in /var/lib/dpkg/status
Paul Seelig
/var/lib/dpkg/status anytime in the future? I don't see the point for
keeping entries which refer to packages which don't even exist
anymore. In contrary it would probably(?) slightly speed up dpkg
actions (could probably be neglected though) when this useless cruft
could be removed. At least it wouldn't confuse users about the
availability of non-existing packages.
E.g., the following example lists a few packages alongside still
installable ones which simply don't exist anymore (guess which):
------------------ snip -----------------
[pseelig]~ > grep "Status: purge ok not-installed" /var/lib/dpkg/status | wc -l
574
[pseelig]~ > dpkg -l "*" | grep ^p
pn abisuite <none> (no description available)
pn abook <none> (no description available)
pn aileron <none> (no description available)
pn amaya <none> (no description available)
pn apache-ssl <none> (no description available)
pn applix-bin-applixwa <none> (no description available)
pn applix-bin-clipart- <none> (no description available)
pn applix-bin-dg-base <none> (no description available)
pn applix-bin-filters- <none> (no description available)
[ snip ]
pn xpaint <none> (no description available)
pn xplore <none> (no description available)
pn xplore-1.1 <none> (no description available)
pn xpm4g <none> (no description available)
pn xpm4g-dev <none> (no description available)
pn xsane-gimp1.1 <none> (no description available)
pn xserver-common-v3 <none> (no description available)
pn xserver-svga <none> (no description available)
pn xsitecopy <none> (no description available)
pn xzgv <none> (no description available)
pn yard <none> (no description available)
pn yawmppp <none> (no description available)
pn ypmail.app <none> (no description available)
pn zapping <none> (no description available)
pn zope <none> (no description available)
pn zope-tinytable <none> (no description available)
[pseelig]~ >
------------------ snip -----------------
Thanks, P. *8^)
--
------------ Paul Seelig <pse...@mail.uni-mainz.de> -------------
African Music Archive - Institute for Ethnology and Africa Studies
Johannes Gutenberg-University - Forum 6 - 55099 Mainz/Germany
------------------- http://ntama.uni-mainz.de --------------------
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Ben Collins
>
> Is it planned to get rid of package entries for purged packages in
> /var/lib/dpkg/status anytime in the future? I don't see the point for
> keeping entries which refer to packages which don't even exist
> anymore. In contrary it would probably(?) slightly speed up dpkg
> actions (could probably be neglected though) when this useless cruft
> could be removed. At least it wouldn't confuse users about the
> availability of non-existing packages.
dpkg --help
....
dpkg --forget-old-unavail forget uninstalled unavailable pkgs
....
Ben
--
.----------=======-=-======-=========-----------=====------------=-=-----.
/ Ben Collins -- Debian GNU/Linux \
` bcol...@debian.org -- bcol...@openldap.org -- bcol...@linux.com '
`---=========------=======-------------=-=-----=-===-======-------=--=---'
Adam Heath
> On Sun, Dec 30, 2001 at 08:34:26PM -0500, Ben Collins wrote:
> > > Is it planned to get rid of package entries for purged packages in
> ~~~~~~
> > ....
> > dpkg --forget-old-unavail forget uninstalled unavailable pkgs
> > ....
I take this to mean that for packages that are uninstalled, and ALSO no longer
available in /var/lib/dpkg/available, then remove them from status. However,
that is not what the original question was.
Joey Hess
> Those entries are actually used by dselect, so it knows when a package has
> previously been available. dpkg has no use with such information, and yes, it
> does slow it down(in addition to taking more memory).
Doesn't dpkg -l use them to show when you've purged a package? and dpkg
-s of course..
--
see shy jo