Declaring possible update-alternatives in debian/control file

[Zygmunt Krynicki]

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Hi.

This is a recurring topic for the command-not-found database.

I'd like to propose that we store the list of possible usages of
update-alternatives that a postinst script can invoke in the control
file. This will allow us to easily and reliably generate accurate
hints as to which package contains a particular command.

The process of building command-not-found database is currently
hindered by the fact that many popular commands are actually provided
as an update-alternative link from an actual executable that is
present in the binary package. There is no automatic way to extract
that information and current solution is based on very inaccurate
heuristics.

I've created a new tool for building [1] a database [2] of currently
used update-alternatives for 12% of packages in Ubuntu (the rest can
be added incrementally as I finish mirroring the archive)

I'd like to discuss how this database can be merged with actual source
packages. If there is a consensus on if and how to do this I will
gladly do the heavy lifting of proposing patches for each source
package that is affected.

Best regards
Zygmunt Kryniki

[1]:
https://github.com/zyga/command-not-found/blob/check-update-alternatives/UnifiedDataExtractor/check-update-alternatives

[2]: https://github.com/zyga/ubuntu-update-alternatives-data
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