Bug 218057

Summary:	man page --initdb description misleading
Product:	[Fedora] Fedora	Reporter:	Tony Nelson <tonynelson>
Component:	rpm	Assignee:	Panu Matilainen <pmatilai>
Status:	CLOSED UPSTREAM	QA Contact:
Severity:	low	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	6
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2007-08-09 19:04:06 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Tony Nelson 2006-12-01 16:30:50 UTC

Description of problem:
RPM's man page info on --initdb implies that any existing RPM database will be
replaced by a new, empty database.  Possibly this used to be the effect, but
currently --initdb only ensures that an RPM database is present (in fact, just
the Packages file), and doesn't do anything if the database already exists. 
Therefore it is safe and unnecessary to do an --initdb at any time, such as just
before a --rebuilddb.

The man page section on --initdb could say:

"Use --initdb to ensure that the database exists, without changing any existing
database; use --rebuilddb to rebuild the database indices from the installed
package headers in the Packages file."

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
rpm-4.4.2-32.i386

How reproducible:


Steps to Reproduce:
1. man rpm
2.
3.
  
Actual results:


Expected results:


Additional info:

Comment 1 Panu Matilainen 2007-08-09 19:04:06 UTC

--initdb meaning clarified in rpm.org manual now.