`Build-Depends` parsing problem for node-* packages

[Arnaud Ferraris <arnaud.ferraris@gmail.com>]

Hi,

I've been confronted with an issue affecting a number of node-* packages
(and maybe others): apt is unable to parse the Build-Depends field,
making `apt build-dep` effectively unusable with those packages.

One good example is node-ramda[1]: as the first non-space character apt
encounters when parsing Build-Depends is a comma, it considers this a
syntax error and errors out.

I see 2 possible ways out of it:
  * change apt's behavior to not error out on an empty field
  * modify all offending packages to remove the first comma

My personal opinion is that apt's current behavior is sane and the 2nd
option is the best way to tackle this issue, but I'd be interested in
having more feedback from the community before I start filing bug
reports, one way or another.

Best regards,
Arnaud

[1]
https://salsa.debian.org/js-team/node-ramda/-/blob/master/debian/control#L7