doc-base cannot be removed/purged

[LiraNuna]

Binary package hint: doc-base

Using an updated (time of writing) Ubuntu 8.04.2, trying to remove the package doc-base results in a failure:

$ sudo apt-get remove doc-base
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  docbook-xml sgml-data scrollkeeper
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  doc-base
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 336kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
(Reading database ... 29531 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing doc-base ...
cannot find install-docs on path
dpkg: error processing doc-base (--remove):
 subprocess pre-removal script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 doc-base
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

As you can see, it cannot find "install-docs" program/script, but it's about to be removed anyhow.

This bug effects the following packages as well (cannot be removed or purged) docbook-xml scrollkeeper sgml-data xml-core

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package doc-base - 0.10.1

---------------
doc-base (0.10.1) unstable; urgency=low

  * DocBaseFile.pm, InstallDocs.pm:
    + while getting changed files, don't schedule not yet registered files
      for removal;
    + if some documents cannot be registered and verbose messages are turned
      off, inform the user how to get the more detailed reasons of the errors.

doc-base (0.10.0) unstable; urgency=low

  * Applied a bit modified patch from Martin Pitt @ Ubuntu to remove dependency
    on perl (closes: #602919):
    + Scrollkeeper.pm: provide our own local dirname() function and use it
      instead of File::Basename;
    + InstallDocs.pm: use the `rm -r' and 'mkdir -p' programs instead of
      File::Path;
    + debian/rules: run dh_perl with '-d' to avoid perl dependency.

  * Switch internal databases format from MLDBM to YAML and provide better
    error recovery from database corruption:
    + DB.pm: use YAML::Tiny module for storing our internal databases;
    + Util.pm: introduce Fatal() function and differentiate exit codes
      by type of error;
    + make the Fatal() function call
    + debian/control: switch dependency on libmdlbm-perl to libyaml-tiny-perl;
    + debian/postinst: try to recover for yaml files corruption by deleting
      them and re-spawning install-docs.

  * Translations handling:
    + patch from David Prévot not to assume word ordering in translated
      strings (closes: #606475);
    + patch from Chris Leick to fix plurals in the strings (closes: #521384);
    + English messages cleanups;
    + mark more doc-base messages as translatable;
    + Update Polish translation of binary.

  * doc-base.sgml:
    + prepend a top-level section name section names to make it more visible
      that sections' components are separated by slash (closes: #578331);
    + add the `Network/Remote Access' section (closes: #555161);
    + the Network section has two levels, not three (closes: #615488).

  * Don't create scrollkeeper files when rarian-compat is not installed
    (closes: #419745)
    + debian/triggers: interest on /usr/share/doc/rarian-compat to be
      notified of installs/removals of rarian-compat
  * DocBaseFile.pm: fix `no valid Format found' check.
  * Scrollkeeper.pm: avoid `unsuccessful stat on file contains new line'
    warnings given by perl (closes: #607498, #614330).

  * Ubuntu bugs handling:
    + install-docs.in: check if the Pod::Usage module is available before
      using it (LP: #431270, #510976);
    + this version gets rid of MLDBM and provides a better handling of
      databases corruption, to prevent `read error' bugs
      (LP: #695319, #675069, #672364, #668856, #652102, #621345);
    + debian/prerm: downgrade the `cannot find install-docs on path' error
      to a warning to make it possible to remove doc-base when install-docs
      is not available for some reason (LP: #391464);
    + the `/usr/share/doc-base/data/doc-base.map' file is provided in the
      package, it must have been deleted either manually or by filesystem
      error (LP: #660345, #646629);
    + close bugs that are duplicates of Debian bug#501874, fixed in 0.8.18
      (LP: #24771...