[pacman-dev] backup handling

[Roman Kyrylych]

2007/9/19, Xavier <shiningxc at gmail.com>:
> stonecrest noticed during last pacman upgrade that the /etc/pacman.d/current
> file was removed, although that file was in the backup array of previous
> packages, and might have been modified by the user.
>
> pacman 3.0.5-3 contained only /etc/pacman.d/current file and had it in its backup array.
> pacman 3.0.5-4 contained only /etc/pacman.d/core file and had it in its backup array.
> And on 3.0.5-3 -> 3.0.5-4 upgrade, the current file is removed, without any
> backup.
>
> While in this case, it was totally harmless, in the general case, it might
> not be the desired behavior.
>
> As we know, in pacman, an upgrade is a remove + add progress.
> The remove is a special one though, since we dont want to lose the config
> files. So pacman adds all files in the backup array to NoUpgrade, so that
> these files are not removed.
> But it picks only the files of the new backup array, as seen there :
>
> 298   /* Add files in the NEW package's backup array to the noupgrade array
> 299    * so this removal operation doesn't kill them */
> 300   /* TODO if we add here, all backup=() entries for all targets, new and
> 301    * old, we cover all bases, including backup=() locations changing hands.
> 302    * But is this viable? */
>
> So during 3.0.5-3 -> 3.0.5-4 , the current file was not added to noupgrade
> and was then lost.
>
> Implementing the above TODO would probably fix the issue, and it should be
> pretty easy to do.
> But I'm a bit concerned by the last comment : "But is this viable?"
> What are really the downsides of doing this?
>
> While writing this, I may seen one inconvenient, it's that it might not be
> obvious to the user that this current file is no longer used and owned by pacman.
> Maybe it should be renamed to current.pacsave then ?
>

Thanks for bringing this up.
I think it would be nice to have such files saved as .pacsave.
But how many of those files (that were in NoUpgrade) still exist
without backup information now? I think they are <0.1%.

-- 
Roman Kyrylych (Роман Кирилич)