This bug was fixed in the package dpkg - 1.16.3ubuntu1

---------------
dpkg (1.16.3ubuntu1) quantal; urgency=low

  * Merge with 1.16.3 from unstable:
    - Change the multiarch downgrade version checks in prerm/postrm
      from 1.16.2 to 1.16.0~ to reflect when multiarch landed in Ubuntu.
    - Migrate dpkg multiarch conffile (and other multi-arch-related
      conf settings) to the new DB with dpkg --add-architecture, but
      keep a copy of the old conffile if it was modified.
    - Out of paranoia, keep an option handler for foreign-architecture
      that informs people that they need to scrub their config files
      and upgrade, on the off chance that the above migration fails
      for some reason (this mitigates the chances of leaving users with
      a dpkg that fails to run due to a broken config).
  * Changes remaining from previous Ubuntu versions:
    - Add DPKG_UNTRANSLATED_MESSAGES environment check so that higher-level
      tools can get untranslated dpkg terminal log messages while at the
      same time having translated debconf prompts.  This is useful for tools
      that hide the dpkg terminal by default and use apport for bug
      reporting with the untranslated error message.
    - Build-depend on gettext:any for cross-building support.
    - Apply patch from Steve McIntyre to special-case armhf/armel ELF
      objects in Shlibs/Objdump.pm, so we don't get incorrect deps.

dpkg (1.16.3) unstable; urgency=low

  [ Guillem Jover ]
  * Do not look for newline beyond the read buffer on dpkg-deb extract.
  * Check update-alternative name and link arguments for all commands.
    Closes: #665050
  * Check all dpkg-divert filename arguments to be absolute and to not
    contain newlines. Closes: #21722
  * Print errors while reading the file list files on a new line instead
    of just after the progress percentage. Closes: #552517
  * Document in dpkg-source(1) that patches for source format “3.0 (quilt)”
    are expected to apply without any fuzz. Closes: #666752
    Based on a patch by Luca Capello <email address hidden>.
  * Remove redundant -Wformat-security from default dpkg-buildflags, which
    is already implied by -Werror=format-security. Closes: #664964
    Suggested by Peter Eisentraut <email address hidden>.
  * Document in dpkg-query(1) that commands producing multiple paragraphs
    will preserve the order of the packages specified on the argument list.
  * Change start-stop-daemon --exec on GNU/Hurd, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD
    and Solaris to check for executables matching device and inode numbers
    instead of filenames.
  * Change start-stop-daemon --name on GNU/Hurd to check the process' argv[1]
    in addition to argv[0], to handle both binaries and interpreted scripts.
    Reported by Mats Erik Andersson <email address hidden>.
  * Handle deb format versions as major.minor integers instead of strings or
    floats, the latter being susceptible to parsing errors depending on the
    current locale (although this was only affecting the old deb format).
  * Ignore the minor format version number for deb-split format, unifying
    the behaviour with the deb format.
  * Add support for an abitable containing arch attribute overrides.
  * Add x32 support to abitable, ostable and triplettable. Closes: #667037
  * Fix start-stop-daemon to work with relative --exec arguments and --chdir.
    Closes: #669047
  * Ignore request to rename a file owned by the diverting package on
    «dpkg-divert --add --rename». Closes: #588077
  * Clarify dpkg-gensymbols(1) by way of examples that architecture wildcards
    are supported in symbols files. Closes: #670048
  * Fix memory leak due to Dpkg::Control objects not being garbage-collected.
    Thanks to Ben Harris <email address hidden>. Closes: #669012
  * Compute the md5sum hash on unpack for empty files too, so that these
    can be checked correctly for matching content when installing multiple
    package instances.
  * Generate md5sums files automatically at unpack time if missing from the
    binary package. Closes: #155676, #155799
  * Add missing list and md5sums database file checks to «dpkg --audit».

  [ Helge Kreutzmann ]
  * Fix a typo in man/dpkg-buildflags.1.

  [ Updated dpkg translations ]
  * French (Christian Perrier).
  * German (Sven Joachim).
  * Swedish (Peter Krefting).

  [ Updated dselect translations ]
  * French (Christian Perrier).
  * German (Sven Joachim).
  * Swedish (Peter Krefting).

  [ Updated scripts translations ]
  * French (Christian Perrier).
  * Swedish (Peter Krefting).

  [ Updated scripts translations ]
  * French (Christian Perrier).
  * German (Helge Kreutzmann).
  * Swedish (Peter Krefting).

dpkg (1.16.2) unstable; urgency=low

  [ Guillem Jover ]
  * Move <config.h> and <compat.h> to the top of trigdeferred.l to properly
    use the configured features and compat code.
  * Honour --disable-nls when the system lacks obstack support, by updating
    the obstack compat module from gnulib.
  * Link the libdpkg unit tests with libcompat and libintl, so that systems
    needing them will compile correctly.
  * Check for the presence of the strnlen declaration and correctly provide
    the compat one in case the systems lacks it.
  * Do not assume existence of paths on the build system in the test suite.
  * Do not fail to link dselect on MacOS X when using --disable-nls.
  * Remove versioned coreutils Pre-Depends from dpkg due to the ancient
    md5sum transition. Reported by Bill Allombert <email address hidden>.
    Closes: #643746
  * Change dpkg-architecture to only compute the requested variables. This:
    - Fixes the bootstrapping problem, as the dpkg build system only needs
      the host architecture, for which dpkg itself is not required.
    - Reduces the amount of work performed, including loading and parsing
      unnecessary table files or calling either of gcc or dpkg programs.
  * Improve error message in dpkg-gencontrol and dpkg-gensymbols when
    debian/control does not have any package stanza. Closes: #642473
    Based on a patch by Kyle Willmon <email address hidden>.
  * Add Pre-Depends on tar >= 1.23 (satisfied in stable) to dpkg due to it
    using the ‘--warning=no-timestamp’ option. Closes: #642802
  * Do not segfault on GNU/Linux when dpkg cannot retrieve the block size
    for the filesystem containing the info database. LP: #872734
  * Fix two memory leaks per tar entry in the tar extractor used on unpack.
  * Mark dpkg and dselect as Multi-Arch foreign.
    Reported by Steve Langasek <email address hidden>.
  * Mark dpkg-dev and libdpkg-perl as Multi-Arch foreign. Closes: #648217
    Thanks to Colin Watson <email address hidden>.
  * Add new deb-origin.5 man page. Closes: #608884
    Thanks to Matt Kraai <email address hidden>.
  * Return correct status on start-stop-daemon --status when using --pidfile.
  * Treat dpkg-deb compression level independently for each backend. This
    has the effect of changing the current behaviour for level 0 on all
    compressors except gzip.
  * Add new dpkg-deb -S option to specify the compression strategy. The only
    currently supported value is “extreme” for xz. Closes: #647915
  * Stop using brace expansion to install man pages by using dh_installman
    instead of dh_install, the former does not abort on empty glob expansion.
  * Do not use absolute paths for programs in perl and shell code.
  * Add missing ‘*’ in asprintf() and vasprintf() compat declarations.
  * Add support for virtual output binary:Summary and db:Status-Abbrev fields.
    Closes: #192619, #427945
  * Add support for virtual output source:Package and source:Version fields.
    Closes: #653575
  * Use a different temporary file per process on libcompat's vsnprintf()
    function to avoid race conditions from children after fork(3).
    Reported by Daniel Ruoso <email address hidden>. Closes: #655411
  * Fix start-stop-daemon --exec and --name options on FreeBSD, NetBSD and
    OpenBSD by swapping the process matching implementations.
  * Fix start-stop-daemon --name option on GNU/Hurd to match the process name.
  * Document in more detail the implications of start-stop-daemon matching
    options. Closes: #367608
  * Improve and clarify dpkg-shlibdeps superfluous linking warning messages.
    Based on a patch by Peter Eisentraut <email address hidden>. Closes: #656496
  * Relax --merge-avail Packages file parser, to not fail on bogus versions.
  * When building only arch-indep binaries with «dpkg-buildpackage -A», name
    the .changes file using ‘all’ as architecture. Closes: #661638
  * Handle unknown architectures gracefully in dpkg-buildflags.
    Closes: #663004
  * Add missing --status-logger to dpkg --help output.
  * Do not print bogus errno string for invalid package names in dpkg
    --ignore-depends option.
  * Change dpkg-query to not load the available file by default for --list
    and --show, add a new --load-avail option to expose the old behaviour.
  * Only allow setting selections via «dpkg --set-selections» for known
    packages (i.e. those present in either the status or available files).
  * Always ignore older versions when parsing the available file, not only
    for --update-avail and --merge-avail.
  * Mark not-installed non-arch-qualified selections for removal.
  * Add new «dpkg --assert-multi-arch» command to allow checking for
    multi-arch support availability.
  * Bump Standards-Version to 3.9.3 (no changes needed).
  * Add architecture consistency checks to «dpkg --audit».
  * Add new dpkg --add-architecture and --remove-architecture commands to
    track supported architectures.

  [ Raphaël Hertzog ]
  * Update Dpkg::Shlibs to look into multiarch paths when cross-building
    too. Closes: #595144
  * Rewrite architecture.mk with explicit loops instead of duplicating many
    similar lines. Based on a patch by Thorsten Glaser <email address hidden>.
  * Modify dpkg-gencontrol and dpkg-distaddfile to grab a write lock
    on debian/control before updating debian/files to avoid simultaneous
    updates. Closes: #642608
    Add libfile-fcntllock-perl to dpkg-dev's Depends since we use this module
    to handle the locking.
  * Update dpkg-gensymbols(1) to clarify that -e accepts shell patterns
    expansions and not regular expressions. And let dpkg-gensymbols output a
    warning when a pattern doesn't match any file. Closes: #649248
  * Add new option "-a <arch>" to dpkg-checkbuilddeps to check build
    dependencies for another architecture. This is really basic for now since
    it assumes all build dependencies must be satisfied on the listed
    architecture. Closes: #648180 Thanks to Colin Watson for the patch.
  * Error out if a dpkg database .list file is not a regular file. LP: #369898
  * Fix dpkg-mergechangelogs to not error out on invalid versions.
    Closes: #651993
  * Fix dpkg-source --commit on "3.0 (quilt)" when an explicit patch file
    is given with a relative filename. Closes: #652414
  * Further clarify in dpkg-source(1) the conditions under which it's possible
    to pass an explicit patch file to dpkg-source --commit.
  * Add new --query-features command to dpkg-buildflags. Thanks to Kees Cook
    for the patch. Closes: #651481
  * Fix description of Multi-Arch in deb-control(5). Closes: #654453
    Thanks to Jakub Wilk for spotting the mistake.
  * Drop misleading spaces in deb-symbols(5) in the format description.
  * Clean up dpkg-architecture(1) dropping useless information and
    adding a reference to /usr/share/dpkg/architecture.mk.
  * Update dpkg-buildpackage to use the "build-arch" (for -B) and
    "build-indep" (for -A) targets unless "make -qn" says that they do not
    exist. Closes: #229357
  * Improve deb-shlibs(5) to mention that the dependency field must
    use the same syntax as a Depends field. Closes: #658696
  * Update dpkg-maintscript-helper(1) to recommend usage of the version
    removing/renaming a conffile with a "~" suffix as "priorversion"
    parameter. Thanks to Sam Morris <email address hidden> for the patch.
    Closes: #658854
  * Fix debug output of dpkg-maintscript-helper. LP: #936340

  [ Jonathan Nieder ]
  * Bump po4a version in Build-Depends to 0.41, since earlier versions do
    not handle --srcdir correctly. Closes: #644370

  [ Guillem Jover, Steve Langasek, Raphaël Hertzog ]
  * Add new dpkg --print-foreign-architectures command.
  * Add support for virtual output binary:Package field.
  * Implement Multi-Arch support.

  [ Helge Kreutzmann ]
  * Fix a typo in man/dpkg-deb.1.

  [ Updated dpkg translations ]
  * German (Sven Joachim).
  * Italian (Milo Casagrande). Closes: #627832, #657849
  * Swedish (Peter Krefting).
  * French (Christian Perrier)
  * Polish (Michał Kułach). Closes: #658126

  [ Updated scripts translations ]
  * German (Helge Kreutzmann).
  * Spanish (Omar Campagne). Closes: #636238
  * Swedish (Peter Krefting).

  [ Updated man page translations ]
  * German (Helge Kreutzmann), including typo fix in dpkg-genchanges
    Closes: #646496, sub optimal translation of package states LP: #368783
    and an fix by Chris Leick
  * Japanese (TAKAHASHI Motonobu).
  * Spanish (Omar Campagne). Closes: #643969
  * Swedish (Peter Krefting).
  * Minor errors corrected in French (thanks to David Prévot)
  * Fix translation of -B and -A options of dpkg-buildpackage.
    Thanks to Vincent Danjean. Closes: #654626

  [ Updated dselect translations ]
  * Dutch (Jeroen Schot). Closes: #651813
 -- Adam Conrad <email address hidden>   Thu, 07 Jun 2012 10:07:38 -0600