[Debconf-devel] Bug#797071: debconf: dpkg-preconfigure extracting template message is written to stderr, should be stdout.

[Colin Watson]

On Thu, Aug 27, 2015 at 04:52:41PM +0200, Benoît SÉRIE wrote:
> When installing packages, apt calls dpkg-preconfigure.
> The message "Extracting templates from packages..." is written to
> stderr.
> http://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/debconf/debconf.git/tree/dpkg-preconfigure#n173
> 
> IMHO, it should be written to stdout as this not an error.

When I added that message in 2005, I wrote it to stderr because stdout
was already in use for the output from apt-extracttemplates, which is
read and parsed by dpkg-preconfigure so adding human-readable text into
it isn't a good idea.

However, there's nothing to stop us using a separate pipe to communicate
with apt-extracttemplates - it's just a bit more fiddly.  I've done that
now:

  https://salsa.debian.org/pkg-debconf/debconf/-/commit/ad03066a1b69f634a81bfb3083a81de1900c91a9

Thanks,

-- 
Colin Watson (he/him)                              [cjwatson at debian.org]