Subject: Bug#4202: dpkg chainsaw massacre

From: Thomas Koenig <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 1996 19:25:04 +0200 (MET DST)

Package: dpkg
Version: 1.2.11

In trying to make a Debian package, I managed to create a regular
file in debian-tmp/usr/lib (a wrong flag with install).

When I tried to test-install the package, there were a few warnings,
but dpkg happily overwrote /usr/lib with that particular text file.
I'll eagerly await what fsck has to say about this.

I'll have another go at developing for Debian when that particular
bug has been fixed.
-- 
Thomas Koenig, [email-masked], [email-masked].
The joy of engineering is to find a straight line on a double
logarithmic diagram.

---

From: Ian Jackson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 96 17:25 BST

Thomas Koenig writes ("Bug#4202: dpkg chainsaw massacre"):
...
> I'll eagerly await what fsck has to say about this.

My apologies.  I have fixed this in dpkg 1.3.9, which I'll release
shortly.

It will now only replace a directory hierarchy with a file if the
directory hierarchy is from a previous instance of the same package,
and isn't anywhere else.

You can force it to go ahead anyway with --force-overwrite-dir, but
you don't want to :-) (and it's not enabled by default, unlike
ordinary --force-overwrite).

Ian.