Re: Bug#555743: dpkg-gencontrol: add support for Description:-s in the Source package stanza
Hi,
On Wed, 11 Nov 2009, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> It would be nice to have support for a Description field in the source
> stanza of debian/control.
>
> My rationale for that is manyfold:
>
> 0) (Starting intuition) most source package have a description per se,
> intuitively, that is the same description you'd find on the upstream
> homepage that made you download a specific software. Sure different
> binary packages can have different specific purpose, but it is in
> most cases possible to have a single all-encompassing description.
Should that description be exported in the .dsc then ?
[ Skipping tools that would benefit from the information ]
> 2) A frequent pattern in debian/control is as follows:
>
> Package: a
> Description: a is foo bar ...
> Project src is .... (COMMON TEXT)
> .
> In this package you find a
>
> Package: b
> Description: b is baz quux ...
> Project src is .... (COMMON TEXT)
> .
> In this package you find b
>
> Source descriptions can be used to factoring out COMMON TEXT in a
> single place.
>
>
> I'm reporting this bug report against dpkg-dev because, AFAICT, it would
> be simply possible to implement this wishlist as an expansion done by
> dpkg-gencontrol at the end of the build. The expansion would simply copy
> the COMMON TEXT from the source package description (if any) at the
> beginning of each binary package description (possibly adding a
> paragraph separator "\n.\n"). I've no idea if such a naive
> implementation would have drawbacks elsewhere.
If I do something like that it's rather with substvars. You could use
${source:Description:body} and ${source:Description:title} in the binary
package description to refer to the the corresponding parts of the source
description.
> What is the stance of dpkg-dev maintainers on this?
I think it's ok. But some more feedback would be welcome, CCing -devel for
this.
Cheers,
--
Raphaël Hertzog
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