Re: Unclear new string

[Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>]

[ Hmm, forgot to send this yesterday after the push. :) ]

On Tue, 2021-11-23 at 23:02:55 +0100, Julian Andres Klode wrote:
> Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org> schrieb am Di., 23. Nov. 2021, 22:14:
> > On Tue, 2021-11-23 at 18:16:30 +0100, Helge Kreutzmann wrote:
> > > while updating the translation of the man pages, I stumbled over one
> > > sentence I could not make sense of:
> > >
> > > "The file mode check failed (since dpkg 1.21.0).  This check currently
> > > only applies to regular files that have a known digest, and on the
> > > filesystem are not regular files."
> > >
> > > The part after the "and" is unclear. A filesystem without regular
> > > files?
> >
> > Hmm, right when writing that I did pause for a bit thinking whether it
> > was clear or not, but I guess my bias tricked me. :) Let me retry:
> >
> >   The file mode check failed (since dpkg 1.21.0).  This check currently
> >   only applies to pathnames that have a known digest and are not regular
> >   files on the filesystem.

> Sorry for the phone answer, but as I had to read that three times, I
> figured I'd note that. I think I got it now: There is a conflict between
> having a digest and being an irregular file.
> 
> First I wondered: Huh is this checking digests of such files, this makes no
> sense? I was like, should this be an or?
> 
> Second I forgot.
> 
> Turn the "and" into a "but" and I think it gets OK. Currently the
> contradiction is not easy to  deduct.
> 
> Or write explicitly that having a digest conflicts with actually not being
> s regular file.

Ok, I've ended up with this which I've just pushed to git:

,---
The file mode check failed (since dpkg 1.21.0).
Because pathname metadata is currently not tracked, this check can only be
partially emulated via a very simple heuristic for pathnames that have a
known digest, which implies they should be regular files, where the check
will fail if the pathname is not a regular file on the filesystem.
This check will currently never succeed as it does not have enough
information available.
`---

I can refine further if it's still not clear. :)

Thanks,
Guillem