Re: Package naming rules.
Dale Scheetz <dwarf@polaris.net> said:
> Since other utilities than grep follow the same rules for word separators
> it seems only prudent to not allow word separators within a package name.
> As the underscore ('_') character is not considered a word separator (at
> least by grep, that's the only test I have made) I strongly suggest that
> all dash ('-') characters in package names be replaced by underscore ('_')
> characters.
>
> Any objections?
According to the grep(1) man page, the word-constituent characters are
[a-zA-Z0-9_]. I see 77 packages with one or more of the non word-constituent
characters '-', '.', and '+' in their package names listed in my current
/var/lib/dpkg/available file.
Personally, I think that we should stick with the guideline of using the
upstream author's unmangled package name. I'm not a big fan of tailoring
requirements to make implementation more convenient. Also, as Ian J. has
recently remarked, renaming packages is a pain. I don't think that we
should lightly make a change which would require renaming 77 packages
which are currently in distribution.
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