Re: Missing virtual provides on postgresql-9.4 deb

Re: James Laska 2015-06-24 <CAFyeYZ4xvd4O8JrOx=uydMSoQMW5XtHS_t5eWBxYboCwo0NdyQ@mail.gmail.com>
> While installing postgresql-9.4, I noticed that the deb does not offer a
> `Provides: postgresql`.  I believe the convention for the comparable rpm
> builds is to offer a virtual provides so that any packages requiring the
> `postgresql` server capability continue to function after installing
> postgresql-9.4, but removing the Ubuntu-packaged `postgresql` package.
>
> It seems this convention was followed for the postgresql-client-9.4 as it
> offers the following virtual Provides:
>
> Provides: postgresql-client
> >
>
> Any reason not to add the following virtual provides to the `control` file
> for the postgresql-9.4 deb package?
>
> Provides: postgresql

Hi,

the problem here is that "postgresql" is a real package as well. If
something "Depends: postgresql" to get the 'current' server version as
defined by that package, that shouldn't be satisfied by some other
postgresql-x.y package.

Now you could argue that the same holds for the client package, though
the client packages are much more interchangeable, while the server
really only works with the same version that wrote the data in PGDATA.
Also, that would break upgrades where we rely on postgresql.deb
pulling in the new version.

I'm not saying we can't change this, though there's some reason behind
the way it currently is. Martin, do you remember if that "Provides:"
mismatch between server and client was intended, or did we just forget
that? Should we rather remove it from the client packages as well?

Christoph
--
cb@df7cb.de | http://www.df7cb.de/