Re: Registering a media type for Debian binary packages ?

[Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Hi Charles and thanks for your work on this.

Charles Plessy writes ("Re: Registering a media type for Debian binary packages ?"):
> Le Fri, Jan 03, 2014 at 11:47:56AM +0100, Guillem Jover a écrit :
> > Could this be made generic as to not recommend a specific frontend
> > implementation, but just what's needed from it? Some systems do not
> > use apt, some users might want to use something else, etc. But maybe
> > that's not how other mime type entries are written?

I agree with this criticism.

> Here, I intend “APT archives” to be about the format, not to suggest
> that only apt-get should be used.  I could phrase it better.
> Suggestions are welcome.

"Debian format http/ftp archives".  The Debian archive format existed
before apt, of course!

> The contents of the Debian binary packages are placed inside tar
> archives (possibly compressed) wrapped in an ar archive (see the
> ‘deb’ manual page for details on the format); it is therefore ...

This is a clumsy paragraph IMO.  How about:

  The Debian binary package consists of an (old style) "ar" archive
  containing, amongst other things, compressed tar archives for the
  primary package contents such as the files to be installed. It is ...

> possible to inspect them with standard UNIX tools (although the
> recommended way is through the command ‘dpkg-deb’) without actually
> installing the package and therefore without executing the package's
> scripts.

I would add:

  However, creating a Debian binary package requires the Debian tools.

Otherwise there is a risk that someone reading this might think that
they can make a .deb with ar(1).

> Magic number(s):
> Version 2.0 files start with the following string:
> !<arch>\ndebian-binary

Is it necessary to say that there "\n" represents an ASCII linefeed
character ?

Thanks,
Ian.