Re: changes file format

[Bill Mitchell <mitchell@mdd.comm.mot.com>]

Ian Murdock <imurdock@debian.org>

>    We need to be able to feed the announcement to `md5sum -c', which
>    expects <checksum> <space> <space> <filename>.
> 
> I agree completely.  At the moment, I have to run a special script to
> convert the dchanges md5sum format into a format that md5sum -c can
> understand.  This is a pain.  If I didn't know how to write a shell
> script to parse a string and rearrange it, I'd be out of luck.

dchanges implemented the announcement format proposed by Bruce.
If I recall, there was a call for discussion, but little input.

If I'm still maintaining dchanges I can tweak its announcement file
format, given a reasonable definition of the desired format.  If Ian J.
is going to produce a dchanges replacement, he can address that.

BTW, "man md5sum" doesn't say anything about the required
<checksum> <space> <space> <filename> format for "md5sum -c".