Re: [RFC] Support column alignment in (multi)select debconf questions

[Frans Pop <elendil@planet.nl>]

Otavio wrote:
> I prefer to:
> - use a easy to identify character as separator (& | or whatever)
> - a way to escape this character (\& \| or whatever)

I'd suggest to do it the other way around: define a special character
sequence that is recognized by cdebconf as a column separator (and a
second sequence to be used for column spanning).

Maybe even define a new class "debconf directives" that can be included
in strings.
This could be something like ${!TAB} or ${!COL} and ${!SPAN=2}. Advantage
is that ${...} is already used for variables and thus already special cased.
The added "!" makes sure there can be no conflict with actual variables.

This solution also avoids the need to have additional escapes for "normal"
characters (and thus avoids the need to check all existing strings - both
in d-i and elsewhere - for them).
It also allows to define aditional directives if those should become needed
in the future.