From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322) Description of problem: There are two reasons why dependencies fail for rpm Install/Update and the error message shold distinguish between them. 1) This package requires other packages not currently present 2) Other packages require that this package remain Impact: Resolving these two cases requires differrent procedure so distinct error messages would make processing the log easier. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): How reproducible: Didn't try Steps to Reproduce: Determine where the dependency failed error message is produced and distinguish between the two cases. Actual Results: Expected Results: Additional info:
I believe that rpm already distinguishes these 2 cases by inserting the string "... (installed) ..." for what you are calling case 2). Can you suplly specific examples of the text and/or the context where rpm does not distinguish the two cases?
The two cases can already be distinguished as you point out, but the *error message* is the same in both cases. Processing the log is more difficult when the error message must be qualified by the subsequent lines. By the time I learn if I have case 1 or case 2, I have already had to decide which log to write. My preference would be to capture the error message and decide if I have case 1 or case 2 and then write the subsequent qualifying lines to the appropriate log. I'm pretty sure rpm knows why the dependency has failed at the time the error message is issued and before the list of offending items is produced. There is no harm in letting the user in on the secret. This does raise the interesting and previously unconsidered case 3 where both case 1 and case 2 apply... I think that should also have it's own message. This is not a bug and everything works correctly, so far as I know. This feature would simply be an expedient for system administration when there are a lot of machines to manage.
Changing the error msgs to be more specific is as likely to be disruptive as leaving bad enough alone. The necessary 1) and 2) cases are distinguished, albeit perhaps less clearly than everyone would like. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "... the *error message* ..." AFAIK, the error msgs are different, case 2) has "... (installed) ..." and I've asked for specifics if that is not already true in rpmlib. If all you mean is that the beginning "is needed by" is common in the 2 msgs, well, yah. The problem is that error msgs are translated, and used in python exceptions, and wired in python/shell/perl scripts, so its not just changing text in a fprintf within rpmlib. There is always a case 4) and a case 5) and a case 6) and ... because the universe of errors is considerably larger than the universe of functionality. Basically, I don't see a clear and postive gain in adding a separate, collapsed, case 3) error msg.
Fedora Core 5 and Fedora Core 6 are, as we're sure you've noticed, no longer test releases. We're cleaning up the bug database and making sure important bug reports filed against these test releases don't get lost. It would be helpful if you could test this issue with a released version of Fedora or with the latest development / test release. Thanks for your help and for your patience. [This is a bulk message for all open FC5/FC6 test release bugs. I'm adding myself to the CC list for each bug, so I'll see any comments you make after this and do my best to make sure every issue gets proper attention.]
*** Bug 211732 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
User pnasrat's account has been closed
Reassigning to owner after bugzilla made a mess, sorry about the noise...
Marking as dupe of bug 350701 - the message isn't very optimal to begin with but the fact that it's impossible to translate to various languages can be considered as a bug. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 350701 ***