[xml/sgml-pkgs] Bug#477751: tackling this bug

[Helmut Grohne]

Hi Daniel,

On Mon, Dec 05, 2011 at 12:05:26AM +0100, Daniel Leidert wrote:
> My thoughts on this are pretty easy. There are IMO three mechanisms to
> use:
> 
> (1) Register the catalog, if it exists (and unregister any registered
> catalog, if it doesn't exist anymore). So users can remove the package
> catalog file.
> 
> (2) Register the catalog only during installation, but not during
> upgrade. Usually we only add a catalog reference to the super
> catalog.

This is what I proposed. It can be done today with a simple change to
debhelper and no changes to sgml-base.

> (3) Catalog files should be written at build time not during
> installation. Instead of creating /etc/sgml/package.cat during
> installation, this should be created during package build. So the user
> can edit /etc/sgml/package.cat and /etc/sgml/catalog and we preserve
> these changes.

Initially I thought about this as well. The problem with this is that
currently /etc/sgml/package.cat is not owned by any package. So by
switching a package to this model, each installation would prompt the
user for those files.

> If the user now changes /etc/sgml/package.cat and we need to ship an
> updated file, he should usually be asked, if he wishes to update the
> file during installation.
>
> IMO we don't need to check, what has been "disabled" or not. Or does
> this have any advantages IYO?

It works without asking the user questions during upgrade. This applies
both to a transitioning period and to the long term when a package.cat
changes.

I don't really care whether the user is asked on package upgrades after
he changes those files. But installations where no user changed those
files should definitely not ask the user.

So I propose that either you come up with a method to cleanly take over
ownership of those configuration files or we use my approach. In any
case this bug should be fixed some way or another.

Helmut