Re: DEP5 CANDIDATE parser/editor/validator/migrator is released in libconfig-model-perl
Le Fri, Jan 14, 2011 at 12:09:33PM -0400, Joey Hess a écrit :
>
> I probably misread DEP5 -- when it says "formatted text, no synopsis",
> it probably means that the entire field including the first line
> is treated as one thing. So both "Comment: foo\n" and "Comment:\n foo\n" are
> the same value.
The comment field was only briefly discussed, but nobody noted on the
impossibility to have a synopsis: http://lists.debian.org/1282769854.2242.54.camel@havelock
The absence of synopsis in the Comment and Disclaimer fields maybe originates
from the proposition that newlines are not significant there?
( http://lists.debian.org/1282080573.12989.179.camel@havelock )
Perhaps at that time it looked more simple like this. But I would definitely
agree to have the Disclaimer and Comment fields simply follow the same syntax
as debian/control's Description field, that is, ‘formatted text, with
synopsis’, if the consensus is that it reduces the complexity of the DEP's
syntax. I do not think that other control files contain fields with a similar
syntax. Rather, when no synopis is desired, the formatted field starts with an
empty line, like the Changes field of .changes files.
Source is the last field with a ‘formatted text, with synopsis’ syntax. The
reason for this is that it was designed to fit multiple purposes: be able to
indicate multiple URLs when a package aggregates multiple sources, and be the
place to record a comment when no URL can be given. But we have a Comment
field, so why not use it instead ? In that case, the format could be changed to
‘line based list’.
That would leave only three kind of syntaxes: white space separated lists, line
based lists and formatted text.
To better help the reader to leverage his understanding of the other Debian
control files and RFC 822 when learning the DEP-5 format, I think that we
should unify the vocabulary as much as possible. Unfortunately, the Policy
currently does not provide much abstraction of the syntax of the fields in
Debian control files. I have submitted #593909 to introduce three types:
simple, folded and multiline. It already has been seconded by two persons. If
it is accepted, the DEP could be clarified accordingly:
- Single-line values → simple (hopefully removed from the DEP if we agree on the simplifications above).
- white space separated lists → folded (this is RFC 822's terminology).
- line based lists → multiline, like the Files field.
- formatted text → multiline, like the Description field.
Have a nice day,
--
Charles Plessy
Debian Med packaging team,
http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-med
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan
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