debconf is missing a dependancy

[Chris Moore]

package 'debconf' provides Encoding.pm:

    chris@chrislap:~$ dpkg -L debconf | grep Encoding.pm
    /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Encoding.pm

Encoding.pm uses /usr/bin/locale:

    chris@chrislap:~$ grep locale /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Encoding.pm
      $charmap = `locale charmap`;

And /usr/bin/locale is provided by package belocs-locales-bin:

    chris@chrislap:~$ dpkg -L belocs-locales-bin | grep /usr/bin/locale$
    /usr/bin/locale

So... package 'debconf' should depend on package 'belocs-locales-bin' (whether directly or indirectly), but it doesn't. It just let me remove belocs-locales-bin without removing defconf:

    chris@chrislap:~$ sudo apt-get remove belocs-locales-bin
    Reading package lists... Done

    Building dependency tree... Done

    The following packages will be REMOVED:
      belocs-locales-bin locales
    0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
    Need to get 0B of archives.
    After unpacking 13.5MB disk space will be freed.
    Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

Fix: add 'belocs-locales-bin' or 'locales' to the dependancies of 'debconf'.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

/usr/bin/locale was formerly provided by libc6, and was thus in the Essential set. It moved to belocs-locales-bin with no dependency from libc6 (or I suppose belocs-locales-bin could be marked Essential too, but that seems riskier in case we ever want to move away from belocs again ...). This is a bug in itself; I don't think we should have to go around adjusting every package that used /usr/bin/locale and relied on it being Essential.

Jeff, could you please add a dependency from libc6 to belocs-locales-bin?

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

There's already a dependency from libc6 to locales, which should be sufficient - but maybe not, because debconf runs in contexts where dependencies aren't necessarily satisfied. It's just occurred to me that perhaps this needs to be a Pre-Depends instead. (Of course, that needs to be done with some care!)

[Chris Moore (dooglus)]

libc6 version 2.3.6-0ubuntu6 didn't depend on locales. The dependancy
seems to have been added to libc6 since I reported this bug.

The bug can be closed now, since it is no longer an issue.