Dpkg does report an error when asked to configure a configured package (page 141)
More...Reported on: 2005-11-17
In chapter 5. The Debian package management system on page 141:
At the end of section 5.3.2, I claim that dpkg does not report an error when asked to configure an already configured package. In fact, dpkg does report an error:
~# dpkg --configure postfix [300]
dpkg: error processing postfix (--configure):
package postfix is already installed and configured
Errors were encountered while processing:
postfix