[bug-notifications] [alternatives 0004559]: --set does not work

[Mantis Bug Tracker]

A NOTE has been added to this issue. 
====================================================================== 
https://www.opencsw.org/mantis/view.php?id=4559 
====================================================================== 
Reported By:                holzi
Assigned To:                phil
====================================================================== 
Project:                    alternatives
Issue ID:                   4559
Category:                   regular use
Reproducibility:            always
Severity:                   major
Priority:                   normal
Status:                     feedback
====================================================================== 
Date Submitted:             2010-09-30 15:47 CEST
Last Modified:              2010-10-03 18:04 CEST
====================================================================== 
Summary:                    --set does not work
Description: 
during testing the new apache2 package I wanted to change the alternative:

/opt/csw/sbin/alternatives --display httpd
Installed alternatives for httpd are:
/opt/csw/apache2/sbin/httpd httpd /opt/csw/apache2/sbin/httpd.prefork 100
/opt/csw/apache2/sbin/httpd httpd /opt/csw/apache2/sbin/httpd.worker 50


/opt/csw/sbin/alternatives --set httpd /opt/csw/apache2/sbin/httpd.worker

ln: cannot create /etc/opt/etc/alternatives/httpd: No such file or
directory

====================================================================== 

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
 (0008338) phil (manager) - 2010-10-03 18:04
 https://www.opencsw.org/mantis/view.php?id=4559#c8338 
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Okay, I've realized the issue now. 
my implementation presumes that, since the "alternatives" file format
allows for "slave" addons to the end of the line, that each alternatives
definition file, has exactly one line.
That may or may not be a reasonable presumption to make. I havent
decided.
But you'll note that other stuff that we have, acts in that manner.
there is

/opt/csw/share/alternatives/mutt_ncurses
/opt/csw/share/alternatives/mutt_slang

It's unfortunate that we have lots of old legacy GAR support and
documentation, that was left around from OTHER implementations of
"alternatives", so that may have lead you astray here.

A quick fix for you, Ben, would be for you to split up your two lines,
into two files.
I'm not sure how long it will take me to figure out multi-line-per-file
support cleanly.