From: nxk3 AT b63526 DOT student DOT cwru DOT edu (Natarajan Krishnaswami)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: Uninstalling components
Date: 23 Nov 1996 16:58:56 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland OH (USA)
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Message-ID: <slrn59ebaq.i5v.nxk3@b63526.student.cwru.edu>
References: <848520453 DOT 1011595 DOT 0 AT abwillms DOT demon DOT co DOT uk>
Reply-To: nxk3 AT po DOT cwru DOT edu
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To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp

Alaric B. Williams wrote:
>On 20 Nov 96 at 8:59, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>
>> How else will you suggest to uninstall a package which overwrites DJGPP 
>> files?  Won't you delete those files and reinstall them from the original 
>> distribution? 
>
>This is true, but leaving the modified djgpp.lnk should do no harm, 
>and the removal of same without understanding of the consequences 
>would probably result in a post saying "gcc is broken on my machine 
>all of a sudden!"
>
>> I think that deleting them will alert people that they 
>> need to reinstall the missing file, which is much better than leaving the 
>> altered files lurking and waiting to bite you later.

Neither silently removing nor silently leaving the modified files
seem particularly elegant solutions, IMHO.

I think it should leave the altered file in place but warn that it is part
of a removed package (both to the screen and an install.log file).  Randomly
deleting files is a BAD thing.  Is it really too much to examine all of
the manifests and list other packages that provide the file?  If that is
too slow, perhaps the installer could build a dependency list once
and modify it when a package is added or removed.  

On a similar vein, how about overwriting existing files from already-
installed packages?  Z.B, if I modify my 2.0 specs, and upgrade to 2.01,
it should prompt before overwriting with the specs from 2.01.  I should
be able to save it under a different name and manually make the changes,
if I desire to preserve my modifications.

OTOH, it would be very easy to go ENTIRELY overboard with this
and end up reinventing RPM or Debian packages. :)

(As a purely theoretical sidenote, are either of these portable to djgpp?)


TTYL,
Natarajan
-==(UDIC)==-
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
	- From "Tyger" by William Blake