Re: Two watch files-related MBFs
James Vega wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 07:24:59PM +0200, Giacomo Catenazzi wrote:
>> James Vega wrote:
>>> On Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 03:16:44PM +0200, Giacomo A. Catenazzi wrote:
>>>> I find no official documentation on format of debian/watch files.
>>> man uscan
>>
>> I mean in policy or reference or such official docs.
>
> Why should it be duplicated there? debian/watch is a file that exists
> because of uscan, so uscan should be what documents the format.
not duplicate, but a reference to uscan, specifying the formats.
BTW policy doesn't reference to uscan, but to other tools, so
uscan is also not the definitive answer.
>> Now it is a generic convenience (for maintaner) file.
>> These is also no dependencies on uscan version in debian/control,
>> and often no scripts in debian/ refers to uscan.
>
> Why would uscan be mentioned at all in debian/control? It's not used
> during the build process. No scripts in debian/ need to refer to uscan.
>
>> For this reason, it is also hard to define bugs on debian/watch files.
>
> Why? Either the watch file is written in the proper format so uscan can
> parse it and perform the requested actions or it isn't. Anything other
> than that would fall into the territory of uscan behavior.
if uscan is not called within the package (build or runtime), it is
outside packaging, so what kind of bug can he have?
it is not a policy violation, it is not a file installed on user machine,
it is not used on building package.
What kind of bug is it? (it was a question on the my first mail)
>> Feel free to standardize it by putting some more references in
>> debian policy.
>
> Any tool that a developer may use in the process of maintaining packages
> which leaves a file in debian/ now has to be documented in policy?
No, but this is the main point!
If my uscan works with my debian/watch, why do you bug my debian/watch.
See?
Without a proper reference, debian/watch is a developer file like others,
thus only developer can tell if it is correct or no.
But debian/watch is not used only for uscan, and now it is a important
tool for quality checks, so I think we should upgrade the status of
debian/watch, prescribing a valid formats
Note: Yet uscan is like lint, it only check sources. It is nice not to
have errors, but do you bug mass every package that fail with lint?
No. Do you bug package that has a wrong syntax in debian/control? Yes!
See?
ciao
cate
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