Jeff Johnson wrote:
No --initdb has been harmless when run against an existing rpmdb, been that way (that I know of) since 1998. Truly, how hard is the test: cd /var/lib tar cf rpmdb.tar.gz ./rpm rpm --initdb rpm -qa (or --verifydb or --rebuilddb or ... ) Way easier to test than it is to sort through whatever is claimed on the internet. YMMV.
It's funny how little we as programmers perform actual experiments to get the answers we want (hmm, maybe many of us don't know about the scientific method.) Anyway, it must not be obvious to us, becuase ESR has it listed in his "Smart Questions" essay:
http://catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#before (see item no. 5) -- D.