Re: please upgrade your packages to current standards

[dark@xs4all.nl (Richard Braakman)]

Dale Scheetz wrote:
> On Tue, 6 Jan 1998, Richard Braakman wrote:
> > Do we want all packages to include the Section and Priority fields?
> 
> Probably.
> > 
> > If so, then I think it is far more effective to change dpkg's default
> > behaviour so that it does include these fields, rather than requiring
> > an explicit flag -isp.
> >  
> Dpkg can't put them in if the information is not available in the control
> file.

But it doesn't put them in, even if the information is in the control
file, unless you give it the -isp flag.

>From "man dpkg-gencontrol":
       -is, -ip, -isp
              Include the Section and Priority  fields  for  this
              package  from  the  main source control file in the
              binary package control file being generated.   Usu?
              ally  this  information  is  not included here, but
              only in the  .changes  file.   -isp  includes  both
              fields,  -is only the Section and -ip only the Pri?
              ority.

All my packages have section and priority information in the control
file, but only three packages call dpkg-gecontrol -isp, because I
never saw a reason to care one way or another.  Only those three have
the information in their deb files.

If we all agree that putting this information in the binary packages
is a good thing, then I'd say it is much better to change the default
in dpkg, than to have every maintainer check every rules file.

The packaging manual also has a paragraph about this:

   These fields may appear in binary package control files, in which case
   they provide a default value in case the Packages files are missing
   the information. dpkg and dselect will only use the value from a .deb
   file if they have no other information; a value listed in a Packages
   file will always take precedence. By default dpkg-genchanges does not
   include the section and priority in the control file of a binary
   package - use the -isp, -is or -ip options to achieve this effect.

By now I'm really curious about the reason :-)

Richard Braakman


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