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Bug#177753: dpkg-gencontrol should not normalize field names before reporting them as unrecognized



Package: dpkg-dev
Version: 1.10.9
Severity: minor

While driving too fast in Vim one day, I managed to delete the first two
characters in my debian/control file without noticing it.

I got this from dpkg while doing a build sometime later:

dpkg-gencontrol: warning: unknown information field Urce in input data in general section of control info file

"Urce?", I thought.  "What the fuck is that?"

So, as one might expect, I tried the following commands to track down
the offending cause, since I had no idea.

$ grep -s Urce debian/control
$ grep -s Urce debian/*

Hmmm.  No dice.

That's because the field dpkg-gencontrol was complaining about was
"urce", not "Urce".

Yes, I could have used grep -i, but I think programs that complain about
unrecognized literals should render those literals exactly as input when
issuing error messages about them (that's why they call 'em "literals",
don't you agree?).  This practice makes debugging easier.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
Architecture: powerpc
Kernel: Linux redwald 2.4.19-powerpc #1 Mon Sep 9 09:01:43 EDT 2002 ppc
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C

Versions of packages dpkg depends on:
ii  dselect                       1.10.9     a user tool to manage Debian packa
ii  libc6                         2.3.1-9    GNU C Library: Shared libraries an

-- no debconf information




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