Re: RFC round 4: DEP-3: Patch Tagging Guidelines

[Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org>]

On Fri, Jul 24 2009, Charles Plessy wrote:

> Le Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 11:04:46PM -0500, Manoj Srivastava a écrit :
>> 
>>         I do not see an increase of accuracy in going from:
>>    a set of RFC-2822 compliant fields
>>      to
>>    a set of fields similar to the ones  used in RFC-2822.
>
> RFC-2822 specifies:
>
>    the header field:
>
>            Subject: This is a test
>
>    can be represented as:
>
>            Subject: This
>             is a test
>
> In Debian control files, DEP 3 and DEP 5, some fields preserve the
> newline characters (which by the way are specified by RFC-2822 to be
> CRLF), and give a special importance to the first line. A strictly
> RFC-2822 parser can not parse Debian control files nor DEP 3 patch
> headers, as it will not preserve CRLF characters.

        You have a point here.

> What I am simply asking, is that if DEP 3 is not RFC-2822 compliant,
> it is not written that it is RFC-2822 compliant.

        I see. I think it is of value to state that the fields are
 RFC-2822 compliant, with exceptions delineated below; and make the
 exceptions to certain filed be clearly stated. 

        This, I think, is better than loosening the language all over,
 for every field; and it allows the parser to only special case the
 explicitly named fields, and any unknown header filed can be parsed in
 a standards compliant manner.

        manoj
-- 
The sum of the intelligence of the world is constant.  The population
is, of course, growing.
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>  
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