[pacman-dev] Do we need the force option?

[Allan McRae]

On 09/02/13 20:27, Allan McRae wrote:
> So...  I was looking through the bug tracker and I noticed this:
> https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/30179#comment105772
> 
> Essentially, directory on filesystem being replaced by a file.  pacman
> ignores the conflict 

... when using --force ...

>and then sees it is trying to replace a directory
> with a file and aborts.
> 
> The choices are:
> 1) we modify force to delete the directory before installing the file -
> this can screw over the local db if the directory is owned.
> 2) we look at the conflicts and stop the transaction in non-file-to-file
> conflicts even with --force
> 
> I think #2 is the better option here.
> 
> 
> OR...
> 
> 3) get rid of --force altogether!
> 
> I have good feelings about #3.   When do we actually NEED --force?   In
> most cases a simple rm will fix the conflict and it forces (pun!) the
> user to think about what is being done.
> 
> There is only one case I can think of where that is not appropriate -
> when a user is trying to recover from deleting their local pacman
> database.   But then they can use --dbonly to get the initial fix done,
> and will need to -Qk and rm etc as necessary...
> 
> 
> Would anyone object to removing the option completely?
> 
> Allan
> 
> 
> 
>