Too many unowned directories

[Michael Schwendt]

On Sat, 31 Jan 2009 11:11:30 +0000, Richard wrote:

> Why can't RPM deal with it?

Because it doesn't do it yet? ;)
Perhaps it's not even easy to implement in RPM's current code base?

Sometimes there are lots of reasons why something isn't done. For example,
RPM fails at replacing a symlink with a directory during updates. This has
been discussed several times before [with RPM devs saying that a real
solution would be difficult/complex]. It still hits users around the world
occasionally when package maintainers carelessly hack on their %files
lists.

> It should be able to track which package(s) needed to create a
> particular directory, and remove it once those packages are gone.

Yes, refcounting directories or creating missing %files %dir entries
on-the-fly sounds like a solution. It seems to be at the bottom of
the TODO list, however.

Interestingly, scanning for unowned directories also reveals misplaced
files.