Re: removing previous installed files

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

On Mon, Jan 27, 2003 at 08:49:20AM +1300, Mark McLoughlin wrote:
> 	So, not for the first time, I'm presented with the need to be sure that
> when a new version of a package is installed a file that was in previous
> versions of the package is removed - it cannot be left lying around.
> 
> 	Now, what I did previously was just install a zero-length version of
> the file - but that's not ideal. Is there anything wrong with something
> like
> 
> install-data-local:
> 	if test -f file-I-want-to-kill; then \
> 		rm file-I-want-to-kill; \
> 	fi
> 
> 	Will this cause any problems for packagers ? Does it go against the
> holey laws of the autolord ?
> 

It doesn't matter for packages as long as you get DESTDIR right,
because when building a package you install to a clean temporary
location.

It's probably fine as long as no other package would have a legitimate
reason to install the file-I-want-to-kill, i.e. you're sure that if it
exists it's from an old install of your package.

Havoc