writer2latex packages fails to install

Thanks for reporting this bug and any supporting documentation. Since this bug has enough information provided for a developer to begin work, I'm going to mark it as confirmed and let them handle it from here. Thanks for taking the time to make Ubuntu better!

I can confirm this issue, but on powerpc, and with exit status "1" not "127":

bbogart@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  gnuplot libwvstreams4.3-extras libfaad2-0 libmtp6 libneon26 python-at-spi
  libsnmp10 libicu36 linux-headers-2.6.22-14-powerpc64-smp
  linux-headers-2.6.22-14-powerpc libgfortran1 libmagick++9c2a g++-4.1
  libglew1.4 libmp4v2-0 libcamel1.2-10 libcln4 libgpod2 libstdc++6-4.1-dev
  libsvg1 libpcrecpp0 libx264-54 gutsy-wallpapers libqalculate3
  libgtkhtml2.0-cil libdirectfb-0.9-25 openoffice.org-hyphenation libgsl0
  libwvstreams4.3-base libiso9660-4 liboobs-1-3 libdb4.5
  linux-headers-2.6.22-14 libtotem-plparser7 libuniconf4.3 feisty-gdm-themes
  libntfs-3g12 librsvg2.0-cil libungif4g
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
2 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0B of additional disk space will be used.
Setting up openoffice.org-writer2latex (0.5-6) ...
Adding extension /usr/lib/openoffice/share/extension/install/writer2latex.uno.pkg...
unopkg failed.
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org-writer2latex (--configure):
 subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of openoffice.org:
 openoffice.org depends on openoffice.org-writer2latex; however:
  Package openoffice.org-writer2latex is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing openoffice.org (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 openoffice.org-writer2latex
 openoffice.org
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

This happened during my gutsy -> hardy upgrade.

This merge will fix this issue for Intrepid.

This is for hardy-proposed. ubuntu-sru: is it OK for you.

Thanks! Sponsoring.

This bug was fixed in the package writer2latex - 0.5-8ubuntu1

---------------
writer2latex (0.5-8ubuntu1) intrepid; urgency=low

  * Merge from Debian unstable (LP: #244098), remaining Ubuntu changes:
    - (Build-)depend on default-jre/-jdk.

writer2latex (0.5-8) unstable; urgency=high

  * add missing Depends: on ${misc:Depends} for writer2latex
    (closes: #490138)

writer2latex (0.5-7) unstable; urgency=high

  * fix debian/copyright; ooomath.sty is LPPL, actually mention that

 -- Luca Falavigna <email address hidden> Mon, 04 Aug 2008 02:19:03 +0200

Accepted into -proposed, please test and give feedback here. Please see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Thank you in advance!

I have reproduced the installation failure with the writer2latex 0.5-6 package in hardy 8.04, and can confirm that the writer2latex 0.5-6ubuntu0.1 package in hardy-proposed, with the fixed dependencies pulling in tex-common (which provides update-udpmap), successfully completes installation.

However, once writer2latex is installed, I am unable to convert even the most basic of openoffice documents. Running w2l from the command line gives me:

$ w2l -latex test_document.odt

This is Writer2LaTeX, Version 0.5 (2007-10-15)

Starting conversion...
Converting test_document.odt

String index out of range: 0
java.lang.StringIndexOutOfBoundsException: String index out of range: 0
   at java.lang.String.charAt(libgcj.so.81)
   at java.io.File.getParent(libgcj.so.81)
   at java.io.File.mkdirs(libgcj.so.81)
   at java.io.File.mkdirs(libgcj.so.81)
   at writer2latex.Application.convertFile(Application.java:249)
   at writer2latex.Application.doConversion(Application.java:216)
   at writer2latex.Application.main(Application.java:112)

Attempting to use it as an export filter from openoffice.org also doesn't work; oowriter claims that it's missing a jre and needs openoffice.org-java-common installed. After that gets installed, export to latex still doesn't work and the following is dumped to the terminal:

$ Error:java.util.zip.ZipException: /usr/lib/openoffice/program/classes/writer2latex.jar (No such file or directory)
Error:java.lang.NullPointerException

Making a symlink from /usr/share/writer2latex/writer2latex.jar to /usr/lib/openoffice/program/classes/writer2latex.jar still causes export to fail with the following output to the terminal:

$ Error:java.io.FileNotFoundException: No entry for META-INF/converter.xml exists.
Error:java.lang.NullPointerException

I'm thus not convinced that releasing this updated package will produce something usable for the user.

This should be fixed in Intrepid with OpenJDK, but Hardy is still affected. I tried switching to java-gcj-compat (instead of gij) with no significant improvements. Hardy has no other JVM in main, so this needs to be fixed in a different way.

Looking at http://bugs.debian.org/470397, it seems w2l works using full paths only:

# gunzip /usr/share/doc/writer2latex/examples/latex/sample-article.odt.gz
# w2l -latex /usr/share/doc/writer2latex/examples/latex/sample-article.odt

This is Writer2LaTeX, Version 0.5 (2007-10-15)

Starting conversion...
Converting sample-article.odt
Done!
#

Ah, yes, giving w2l a full path causes it to convert an odt file to latex correctly. Thanks.

Marking as verification-done; however, I'm still somewhat dubious of this update as it won't function properly from within OpenOffice.org's export function, which I suspect is the common use case for this package. If nothing else, writer2linux should probably depend on openoffice.org-java-common.

Nevermind, I retract my hesitation towards the update; for some reason I had overlooked the openoffice.org-writer2latex package, which adds the necessary glue to make writer2linux work from within openoffice.org as an export extension. I no longer have an objection to this package going into hardy-updates.

Thanks, and sorry for the noise!

I can confirm the fix in -proposed.

Copied to hardy-updates.

Same thing here I think http://bit.ly/1dlhrW