Moving right along.. I've moved the fixfields code in now.

Alien/Package.pm

@@ -28,6 +28,15 @@ to build a package, and the package has been converted.
 
 =head1 FIELDS
 
+These fields are of course really just methods that all act similarly;
+allowing a value to be passed in to set them, or simply returning the value
+of the field if nothing is passed in. Child classes may override these
+fields to process input data, or to format output data. The general rule is
+that input data is modified to get things into a package-independant form,
+which is how the data is stored in the fields. When the value of a field is
+read, it too may be modified before it is returned, to change things into a
+form more suitable for the particular type of package.
+
 =over 4
 
 =item name
@@ -136,6 +145,16 @@ having to write your own new() method.
 
 sub init {}
 
+=item install
+
+Simply installs the package. This has to be overridden in child classes.
+
+=cut
+
+sub install {
+	my $this=shift;
+}
+
 =item read_file
 
 This method looks at the actual package file the package represents, and

Alien/Package/Deb.pm

@@ -32,7 +32,8 @@ Set to a true value if dpkg-deb is available.
 
 =item init
 
-Sets have_dpkg_deb if dpkg-deb is in the path.
+Sets have_dpkg_deb if dpkg-deb is in the path. I prefer to use dpkg-deb,
+if it is available since it is a lot more future-proof.
 
 =cut
 
@@ -49,13 +50,23 @@ sub init {
 	}
 }
 
+=item install
+
+Install a deb with dpkg.
+
+=cut
+
+sub install {
+	my $this=shift;
+
+	system("dpkg --no-force-overwrite -i ".$this->filename) &&
+		die "Unable to install: $!";
+}
+
 =item read_file
 
 Implement the read_file method to read a deb file.
 
-This uses either dpkg-deb, if it is present, or ar and tar if it is not.
-Using dpkg-deb is a lot more future-proof, but the system may not have it.
-
 =cut
 
 sub read_file {
@@ -74,7 +85,11 @@ sub read_file {
 		@control = `ar p $file control.tar.gz | tar Oxzf - control [./]control`;
 	}
 
-	# Parse control file and extract fields.
+	# Parse control file and extract fields. Use a translation table
+	# to map between the debian names and the internal field names,
+	# which more closely resemble those used by rpm (for historical
+	# reasons; TODO: change to deb style names).
+	my $description='';
 	my $field;
 	my %fieldtrans=(
 		Package => 'name',
@@ -96,27 +111,17 @@ sub read_file {
 			}
 		}
 		elsif (/^ / && $field eq 'summary') {
-			# Handle xtended description.
+			# Handle extended description.
 			s/^ //g;
 			$_="" if $_ eq ".";
-			$this->description($this->description . $_. "\n");
+			$description.="$_\n";
 		}
 	}
+	$this->description($description);
 
 	$this->copyright("see /usr/share/doc/".$this->name."/copyright");
 	$this->group("unknown") if ! $this->group;
 	$this->distribution("Debian");
-	if ($this->version =~ /(.+)-(.+)/) {
-		$this->version($1);
-		$this->release($2);
-	}
-	else {
-		$this->release(1);
-	}
-	# Kill epochs.
-	if ($this->version =~ /\d+:(.*)/) {
-		$this->version($1);
-	}
 
 	# Read in the list of conffiles, if any.
 	my @conffiles;
@@ -179,7 +184,123 @@ sub unpack {
 	return 1;
 }
 
-=back
+=item package
+
+Set/get package name. 
+
+Always returns the packge name in lowercase with all invalid characters
+returned. The name is however, stored unchanged.
+
+=cut
+
+sub name {
+	my $this=shift;
+	
+	# set
+	$this->{name} = shift if @_;
+	return unless defined wantarray; # optimization
+	
+	# get
+	$_=lc($this->{name});
+	tr/_/-/;
+	s/[^a-z0-9-\.\+]//g;
+	return $_;
+}
+
+=item version
+
+Set/get package version.
+
+When the version is set, it will be stripped of any epoch. If there is a
+release, the release will be stripped away and used to set the release
+field as a side effect. Otherwise, the release will be set to 1.
+
+More sanitization of the version is done when the field is retrieved, to
+make sure it is a valid debian version field.
+
+=cut
+
+sub version {
+	my $this=shift;
+
+	# set
+	if (@_) {
+		my $version=shift;
+		if ($version =~ /(.+)-(.+)/) {
+                	$version=$1;
+	                $this->release($2);
+	        }
+	        else {
+	                $this->release(1);
+		}
+        	# Kill epochs.
+		$version=~s/^\d+://;
+		
+		$this->{version}=$version;
+        }
+	
+	# get
+	return unless defined wantarray; # optimization
+	$_=$this->{version};
+	# Make sure the version contains digets.
+	unless (/[0-9]/) {
+		# Drat. Well, add some. dpkg-deb won't work
+		# # on a version w/o numbers!
+		return $_."0";
+	}
+	return $_;
+}
+
+=item release
+
+Set/get package release.
+
+Always returns a sanitized release version. The release is however, stored
+unchanged.
+
+=cut
+
+sub release {
+	my $this=shift;
+
+	# set
+	$this->{release} = shift if @_;
+
+	# get
+	return unless defined wantarray; # optimization
+	$_=$this->{release};
+	# Make sure the release contains digets.
+	return $_."-1" unless /[0-9]/;
+	return $_;
+}
+
+=item description
+
+Set/get description
+
+Although the description is stored internally unchanged, this will always
+return a sanitized form of it that is compliant with Debian standards.
+
+=cut
+
+sub description {
+	my $this=shift;
+
+	# set
+	$this->{description} = shift if @_;
+
+	# get
+	return unless defined wantarray; # optimization
+	my $ret='';
+	foreach (split /\n/,$this->{description}) {
+		s/\t/        /g; # change tabs to spaces
+		s/\s+$//g; # remove trailing whitespace
+		$_="." if $_ eq ''; # empty lines become dots
+		$ret.=" $_\n";
+	}
+	chomp $ret;
+	return $ret;
+}
 
 =head1 AUTHOR
 

Alien/Package/Rpm.pm

@@ -32,6 +32,20 @@ The text of the changelog
 
 =over 4
 
+=item install
+
+Install a rpm. If RPMINSTALLOPT is set in the environement, the options in
+it are passed to rpm on its command line.
+
+=cut
+
+sub install {
+	my $this=shift;
+
+	system("rpm -ivh $ENV{RPMINSTALLOPT} ".$this->filename) &&
+		die "Unable to install: $!";
+}
+
 =item read_file
 
 Implement the read_file method to read a rpm file.
@@ -63,11 +77,6 @@ sub read_file {
 		$this->$field($_) if $_ ne '(none)';
 	}
 
-	# Fix up the scripts - they are always shell scripts, so make them so.
-	foreach my $field (qw{preinst postinst prerm postrm}) {
-		$this->$field("$!/bin/sh\n".$this->field);
-	}
-
 	# Get the conffiles list.
 	$this->conffiles([map { chomp; $_ } `rpm -qcp $file`]);
 
@@ -104,10 +113,164 @@ sub read_file {
 	return 1;
 }
 
+=item unpack
+
+Implement the unpack method to unpack a rpm file. This is a little nasty
+because it has to handle relocatable rpms and has to do a bit of
+permissions fixing as well.
+
+=cut
+
+sub unpack {
+	my $this=shift;
+	$this->SUPER::unpack(@_);
+	my $workdir=$this->unpacked_tree;
+
+	system ("rpm2cpio ".$this->filename." | (cd $workdir; cpio --extract --make-directories --no-absolute-filenames --preserve-modification-time) 2>/dev/null") &&
+		die "Unpacking of `".$this->filename."' failed: $!";
+	
+	# If the package is relocatable. We'd like to move it to be under
+	# the $this->prefixes directory. However, it's possible that that
+	# directory is in the package - it seems some rpm's are marked as
+	# relocatable and unpack already in the directory they can relocate
+	# to, while some are marked relocatable and the directory they can
+	# relocate to is removed from all filenames in the package. I
+	# suppose this is due to some change between versions of rpm, but
+	# none of this is adequatly documented, so we'll just muddle
+	# through.
+	#
+	# Test to see if the package contains the prefix directory already.
+	if (defined $this->prefixes && ! -e "$workdir/".$this->prefixes) {
+		# Get the files to move.
+		my $filelist=join ' ',glob("$workdir/*");
+
+		# Now, make the destination directory.
+		my $collect=$workdir;
+		foreach (split m:/:, $this->prefixes) {
+			if ($_ ne undef) { # this keeps us from using anything but relative paths.
+				$collect.="$_/";
+				mkdir $collect,0755 || die "unable to mkdir $collect: $!";
+			}
+		}
+		# Now move all files in the package to the directory we made.
+		system "mv $filelist $workdir/".$this->prefixes &&
+			die "error moving unpacked files into the default prefix directory: $!";
+	}
+
+	# When cpio extracts the file, any child directories that are
+	# present, but whose parent directories are not, end up mode 700.
+	# This next block correctsthat to 755, which is more reasonable.
+	#
+	# Of course, this whole thing assumes we get the filelist in sorted
+	# order.
+	my $lastdir='';
+	foreach my $file (@{$this->filelist}) {
+		$file=~s/^\///;
+		if (($lastdir && $file=~m:^\Q$lastdir\E/[^/]*$: eq undef) || !$lastdir) {
+			# We've found one of the nasty directories. Fix it
+			# up.
+			#
+			# Note that I strip the trailing filename off $file
+			# here, for two reasons. First, it makes the loop
+			# easier, we don't need to fix the perms on the
+			# last file, after all! Second, it makes the -d
+			# test below fire, which saves us from trying to
+			# fix a parent directory twice.
+			($file)=$file=~m:(.*)/.*?:;
+			my $dircollect='';
+			foreach my $dir (split(/\//,$file)) {
+				$dircollect.="$dir/";
+				chmod 0755,$dircollect; # TADA!
+			}
+		}
+		$lastdir=$file if -d "./$file";
+	}
+
+	return 1;
+}
+
+=item version
+
+Set/get version.
+
+When retreiving the version, remove any dashes in it.
+
+=cut
+
+sub version {
+	my $this=shift;
+
+	# set
+	$this->{version} = shift if @_;
+
+	# get
+	return unless defined wantarray; # optimization
+	$_=$this->{version};
+	tr/-/_/;
+	return $_;
+}
+
+=item postinst
+
+=item postrm
+
+=item preinst
+
+=item prerm
+
+Set/get script fields.
+
+When retreiving a value, we have to do some truely sick mangling. Since
+debian/slackware scripts can be anything -- perl programs or binary files
+-- and rpm is limited to only shell scripts, we need to encode the files
+and add a scrap of shell script to make it unextract and run on the fly.
+
+=cut
+
+# This helper function deals with all the scripts.
+sub _script_helper {
+	my $this=shift;
+	my $script=shift;
+
+	# set
+	$this->{$script} = shift if @_;
+
+	# get
+	return unless defined wantarray; # optimization
+	$_=$this->{$script};
+	return $_ if ! defined $_ || m/^\s*$/;
+	my $f = pack("u",$_);
+	$f =~ s/%/%%/g; # Rpm expands %S, so escape such things.
+	return "set -e\n".
+	       "mkdir /tmp/alien.\$\$\n".
+	       qq{perl -pe '\$_=unpack("u",\$_)' << '__EOF__' > /tmp/alien.\$\$/script\n}.
+	       $f."__EOF__\n".
+	       "chmod 755 /tmp/alien.\$\$/script\n".
+	       "/tmp/alien.\$\$/script \"\$@\"\n".
+	       "rm -f /tmp/alien.\$\$/script\n".
+	       "rmdir /tmp/alien.\$\$";
+}
+sub postinst {
+	my $this=shift;
+	$this->_script_helper($this, 'postinst', @_);
+}
+sub postrm {
+	my $this=shift;
+	$this->_script_helper($this, 'postrm', @_);
+}
+sub preinst {
+	my $this=shift;
+	$this->_script_helper($this, 'preinst', @_);
+}
+sub prerm {
+	my $this=shift;
+	$this->_script_helper($this, 'prerm', @_);
+}
+
 =item arch
 
 Set/get arch field. When the arch field is set, some sanitizing is done
-first.
+first to convert it to the debian format used internally.
 
 =cut
 
@@ -136,7 +299,7 @@ sub arch {
 	}
 	
 	# Treat 486, 586, etc, as 386.
-	if ($arch =~ m/i\d86/) {
+	if ($arch =~ m/i\d86/i || $arch =~ m/pentium/i) {
 		$arch='i386';
 	}