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From: Dan Jacobson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Debian Bug Tracking System <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: debian-policy: /etc/init.d scripts mask failure
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Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 08:27:54 +0800
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(1.174.2.15-2003-03-30-exp)

Package: debian-policy
Version: 3.5.8.0
Severity: minor

I don't think you are going to fix it at this late date, but next time
please try to follow Unix traditions about $? and emitting error
messages upon failure.

     10.3.2. Writing the scripts
     ---------------------------
     These scripts should not fail obscurely when the configuration files
     remain but the package has been removed, as configuration files remain

OK, 1."fail" 2."obscurely"
Well, the problem was #2 but the design decision was to instead change
the reporting of #1.  So now indeed the obscureness was not fixed, but
failures are no longer detectable.

What if the same design was carried over to rm(1) cp(1) mv(1). I
intend to do an operation but can't tell by $? if it succeeded and
can't count on stderr for failure notices.

     on the system after the package has been removed.  Only when `dpkg' is
     executed with the `--purge' option will configuration files be
     removed.  In particular, as the `/etc/init.d/<package>' script itself
     is usually a `conffile', it will remain on the system if the package
     is removed but not purged.  Therefore, you should include a `test'
     statement at the top of the script, like this:
          test -f <program-executed-later-in-script> || exit 0


On system A:
/etc/init.d/bla_bla start; echo $?
starts bla_bla.
On system B:
/etc/init.d/bla_bla start; echo $?
doesn't start bla_bla. $? is the same.

Apparently error message "no news is good news" doesn't apply here either.

Yes, this is all intentional and any changes now will probably break
lots of stuff, but would K&R have done it this way?
-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux debian 2.4.20-k7 #1 Tue Jan 14 00:29:06 EST 2003 i686
Locale: LANG=zh_TW.Big5, LC_CTYPE=zh_TW.Big5

-- no debconf information


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To: Dan Jacobson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Subject: Re: Bug#201182: debian-policy: /etc/init.d scripts mask failure
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From: Manoj Srivastava <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2003 01:58:45 -0500
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(1.174.2.15-2003-03-30-exp)

Hi,

        There is no failure being masked. The package has been
 removed, but since the /etc/init.d files are conffiles, they have not
 been removed. Startup should not be peppered with extraneous,
 incorrect error messages.

        I am closing this frivolous report.

        manoj
-- 
There's no such thing as pure pleasure; some anxiety always goes with
it.
Manoj Srivastava   <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>  <http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/>
1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05  CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E
1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B  924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C

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