[pacman-dev] pacman -S on already installed package doesn't ask for reinstall

[Xavier]

Allan McRae wrote:
> Roman Kyrylych wrote:
>> Hi!
>>
>> # pacman -S ttf-ms-fonts
>> warning: ttf-ms-fonts-2.0-1 is up to date -- reinstalling
>>
>> It was asking user for confirmation before which I think was logical,
>> because if user just forgot he/she has this package installed - this
>> would allow to avoid creating of unnecessary .pacnew files.
>>
>> Either I missed this change or forgot about it.
>> Could someone enlighten me why this was done

> I can remember this.  Basically, it was decided that if a user did
> "pacman -S package" then they obviously wanted the package reinstalled.
> The thinking was: Why else would you do that if it was already
> installed?  However, I can't find the thread/bug report I saw it in....
>

That's right, I changed this behavior when adding the --needed option :
http://www.archlinux.org/pipermail/pacman-dev/2007-November/010279.html

About .pacnew files, when you reinstall a package, you should not get 
any pacnew, because we are in the following case :

original=X, current=Y, new=X
      Both package versions contain the exact same file, but the one on
      the filesystem has been modified. Leave the current file in place.