[pca] Missing packages while installing patches

[Martin Paul]

Hi,

> If 125077 is obsoleted by 120011-09 and 120011-09 is not installed, then at
> the end, the original 119757 is not finally installed. Right?

Correct. That's how patch dependencies/requirements work. A change in 
patch 119757 requires another change to be made by 120011 before it can 
be installed. Think about an application in patch 119757 requiring a new 
function in a library provided by 120011.

> As I understood from Paul's reply,

My first name is Martin, but I'm used to that. I guess you are as well, 
Román :)

> Having not much experience with
> patching solaris boxes,

Oh, you're uninitiated.

 > I hope this kind of / strange/uncontrolled
> situations where you have to handle as exceptions are not common ones. Are
> they?

I guess you just made some of the people on the list laugh out, as 
that's a quite good description of Sun's current patch system :)

Still, with pca I try to work around most of the oddities to make things 
work smoothly. Hitting the issue with 122660 was bad luck, it's the one 
thing which i did not add a workaround for, as it really is a 
complicated issue, and only shows up in certain situations. The issue 
with 119757 only showed up because of 120011 not being installed, which 
it would have been if it wasn't for 122660.

This sounds complicated again, I guess, but it really isn't all that bad 
if you patched on or two machines.

Martin.