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

[Mantis Bug Tracker]

A NOTE has been added to this issue. 
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https://www.opencsw.org/mantis/view.php?id=4559 
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Reported By:                holzi
Assigned To:                phil
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Project:                    alternatives
Issue ID:                   4559
Category:                   regular use
Reproducibility:            always
Severity:                   major
Priority:                   normal
Status:                     feedback
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Date Submitted:             2010-09-30 15:47 CEST
Last Modified:              2010-10-04 00:37 CEST
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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

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 (0008341) phil (manager) - 2010-10-04 00:37
 https://www.opencsw.org/mantis/view.php?id=4559#c8341 
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It is just a curent implementation detail of GAR, that it only writes one
"alternatives" file per package. It could be modified to do otherwise.
Similarly, the current alternatives implementation "could be modified" to
do otherwise, but that would take a whole lot of thinking about design, and
then quite a bit of coding, to make it happen.
I'm guessing the GAR modification would be fairly easy.

I will not have time to do further modification to the 'alternatives'
program, for at least another two weeks.

I find this whole thing rather odd to start with, having the two apache
binaries merged into the top package.
If you split off the different apache implementations into separate
packages, (or at least the uncommon one) like we previously had, then this
whole "problem" becomes moot. And it would add functionality to the user.
there's no reason for them to download a binary (the lower-priority
"alternative") and have it laying around, if they are never going to use
it.