Subject: Re: Overwriting include files

From: [email-masked] (David Engel)
Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1996 10:40:31 -0500 (CDT)

Mr Stuart Lamble writes:
> Ok. There is a library available, libelf (currently version 0.5.2),
> which is required by a program I was idly toying about with (Eli).
> I'm contemplating packaging up Eli, which would imply packaging up
> libelf as well. 

Go ahead and package libelf.  It's been on my todo list for a long
time, but with my current backlog, I'll probably never get to it.

> However, libelf comes with a couple of #include files
> - libelf.h and nlist.h (I think) - which are also included in libc-dev;
> in the case of libelf.h, this isn't a problem (the two are identical in
> content), but nlist.h has a couple of things in it that (IIRC) are
> #if 0'd out.
> 
> What would be the procedure for saying to dpkg, "These files will
> conflict with those in another package, but it's ok to overwrite them"?
> Or would I have to use a preinst/postrm script to rename them? Shift
> their location? Something else I haven't thought of?

"Replaces:" is the proper dpkg mechanism for doing this, but please
don't use it.  Linc5 does not appear to need either nlist.h or
libelf.h.  Hopefully, H.J. Lu can confirm this.  If this is the case,
then the headers should probably be removed from libc.

David
-- 
David Engel                        Optical Data Systems, Inc.
[email-masked]                      1101 E. Arapaho Road
(214) 234-6400                     Richardson, TX  75081

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From: [email-masked] (H.J. Lu)
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1996 17:28:19 -0700 (PDT)

> then the headers should probably be removed from libc.

I put in libelf.h and nlist.h to hope someone would implement
them :-(. Please feel free to overwrite them.

Thanks.

-- 
H.J. Lu
Innovix Technologies, Inc.
[email-masked]