[Debian-med-packaging] Displaying a message to the user when upgrade can't be fully automated

[Emilien Klein]

Please ignore below message for now, as I'm in the process of using
dbconfig-common, which uses debconf as well. I'll let you know if I
need more help on other stuff.

    +Emilien

2013/4/24 Emilien Klein <emilien+debian at klein.st>:
> Hi team,
>
> I'm working on the postinst file for gnuhealth.
> After each upgrade, the database needs to be updated. This is
> performed by calling the specific tryton command:
>   trytond --database=<your_database> --update=all
>
> The default database name (as explained in GNU Health's installation
> instructions) is gnuhealth, so the script checks if that database
> exists, and if it does it runs the command for that database.
>
> if the user chose to name its database differently, we have no way to
> update the database automatically, but the package will be rendered
> unusable before the database is manually updated. Therefore we need to
> warn the user.
>
> I first echo'd a message using stars around it, but that is:
> 0) not translatable
> 1) most probably not user-friendly/policy-compliant
>
> So I set up about using debconf. The tutorial [0] mentions:
> These questions are asked by a separate config script, not by the
> postinst, so the package can be configured before it is installed, or
> reconfigured after it is installed. Do not make your postinst use
> debconf to ask questions.
>
> I understand that as *questions* should not be asked from postinst
> (makes sense, ask before installing, maybe the response to the
> question will result in the package not being installed after all),
> but that you could use it to *display* information to the user.
>
> So that's what I added to the postinst:
> db_reset gnuhealth/manualupgrade
> db_input high gnuhealth/manualupgrade || true
> db_go
>
> (I reset the seen flag, since this will need to be executed manually
> at each upgrade)
>
> But Lintian is not happy, namely:
> E: gnuhealth: no-debconf-config
> W: gnuhealth: postinst-uses-db-input
>
> Questions:
> * Should I not be using debconf to just display this message to the user?
>   * If not, what should be used that can handle translation to other languages?
>   * If it is OK, can I override those 2 lintian warnings?
>
> Cheers,
>    +Emilien
> [0] http://www.fifi.org/doc/debconf-doc/tutorial.html#AEN113



--
   +Emilien
P.S.: Please CC me, as I'm not subscribed to this list.