Bug#910911: libgdbm6: can't read (some?) older GDBM databases

[Niko Tyni]

Package: libgdbm6
Version: 1.18-2
Severity: grave
X-Debbugs-Cc: perl at packages.debian.org, libmarc-charset-perl at packages.debian.org

The libgdbm6 transition broke autopkgtest checks of src:perl and
libmarc-charset-perl.

It looks like some GDBM databases which were working with the older
gdbm are not readable any more with the new one.

 # file /usr/lib/libmarc-charset-perl/Table
 /usr/lib/libmarc-charset-perl/Table: GNU dbm 1.x or ndbm database, little endian, old
 # gdbm_dump /usr/lib/libmarc-charset-perl/Table
 gdbm_dump: gdbm_open failed: Malformed database file header

Similarly for the test data that gets used in src:perl autopkgtest checks:

 # gdbm_dump debian/tests/data/jessie.gdbm 
 gdbm_dump: gdbm_open failed: Malformed database file header

For reference, the output with libgdbm5 1.14.1-6+b1 is

 % gdbm_dump debian/tests/data/jessie.gdbm
 # GDBM dump file created by GDBM version 1.14.1. 03/01/2018 on Sat Oct 13 13:15:59 2018
 #:version=1.0
 #:file=debian/tests/data/jessie.gdbm
 #:uid=1000,user=niko,gid=1000,group=niko,mode=644
 # End of header
 #:len=3
 Zm9v
 #:len=9
 amVzc2llIE9L
 #:count=1
 # End of data

-- 
Niko Tyni   ntyni at debian.org