Re: Punctuation characters in Debian packaging

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

Ansgar Burchardt writes ("Re: Punctuation characters in Debian packaging"):
> No. I don't think package names should be forbidden just because APT
> treats them in a special way. Otherwise you would have to forbid "+" and
> "." anywhere in package names as well as trailing "-" as apt treats all
> of those in a special way:
> 
>   apt-get -s remove b.sh
>   apt-get -s remove ba+sh

WTF.  So if you actually want apt-get to work reliably you have to
quote everything ?  Surely that's a rather alarming misfeature.

I had a look through archive.debian.org and there are _lots_ of
packages whose names end in `+' (typically, `++'), many of which exist
in sid.

apt-get seems to prefer actual package names to ones resulting from
stripping `+' (which is also IMO a bug).

I haven't (yet) found any package names ending in `-' but I wouldn't
be surprised to find some.

Ian.