rpm db corruption, rebuilddb, and what the hell is it doing?

[Jeff Kyllo <jkyllo echospiral com>]

Okay, I've run into some of what appears to be db corruption with my rpm
databases.  I've looked at some posts on various groups and such and found
the idea of doing --rebuildb.  This is fine and dandy except that I then
lose the entries for most of the packages that I have installed.  Luckily
I backup all of my databases before doing such things.  Anyway, I'm
curious as to what exactly rpm does when rebuilding the db.  I found a
note here saying to upgrade to 4.0.3 as it is able to cope more properly
with bad headers and such.  I just tried upgrading to 4.0.3 (using a
compiled rpm) and my 4.0.2 install chokes with the following:

error: cannot open Depends index using db1 - Invalid argument (22)
Preparing...                Segmentation fault (core dumped)

Yee ha.  So, would it be wise to get a binary of rpm 4.0.3, use it to
rebuild my rpm databases but still use rpm 4.0.2 afterwards?  As in, get
the 4.0.3 tarball, build it, not install it, do ./rpm --rebuilddb, and
then

------

Okay, I solved the problem but thought it'd be good to post this mail
anyway.  I did the last thing I was talking about and it worked.  All is
dandy.  I couldn't find a 4.0.3 tarball however so I just used rpm -b(c|i)
on the spec.

-Jeff

-- 
Nach dem Spiel
ist vor dem Spiel
	-Sepp Herberger