Specifying multiple binary package dependencies

[Sam Varshavchik]

Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users writes:

> On Fri, 18 Mar 2022 21:12:07 -0400, Sam Varshavchik wrote:
>
> >And to test the upgrade behavior I'm just bumping the release number
> >in debian/changelog, to simulate upgrades, rather than actually going
> >through and bumping the version number in my own upstream package,
> >building a new tarball, then building it.
> >
> >I just want to make sure I understand this correctly: if I increased
> >the version number of these packages, rather than incrementing the
> >release number, this affects the logic that dpkg uses to validate
> >package installations and dependencies?
>
> I don't know. It for sure doesn't "affect the logic" of foo does depend
> on bar and also not that all installed foo-1.1-1 packages get replaced
> by foo-1.1-2 as well as bar-1.1-1 get replaced by bar 1.1-2 packages
> that are available by an update via a repository.
>
> I don't know if changing a package release protects against partial
> upgrades. You manually made a partial upgarde! The partial upgarde
> obviously is the culprit here. A partial upgrade cannot happen, if all
> packages are available.

Well, I manually /tried/ to make a partial upgrade. I expected one of two  
results: dpkg rejects it, or the packages get upgraded and the package that  
did not get upgrade get removed. After all, I did specify that the package  
Depends: on the one that gets removed as part of the upgrade.

> Again, I didn't read the DEB package management policy. However, all

My question was a technical, rather than a policy one: if an installed  
package A "Depends" on B, apparently you can end up with dpkg removing B and  
not doing anything about A. That just does not compute for me. My question  
was that if merely specifying that A "Depends" on B is insufficient, then  
what is?

If the answer here is "well, the policy says don't do it", then that's just  
my indirect answer: no, this cannot be enforced by deb packages'  
dependencies.

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