Bug#539066: lintian: [checks/shared-libs] misleading message for unknown dash-containing version in symbols file
Package: lintian
Version: 2.2.13
Severity: wishlist
Hi Lintian maintainers,
Debian policy allows version numbers like 4.999.8beta-115-gadbad2d-1
(<http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-controlfields.html#s-f-Version>),
which makes the symbols-file-contains-debian-revision check tricky.
For example, lintian misdiagnoses the problem in the following symbols
file:
liblzma.so.0 liblzma0 #MINVER#
lzma_alone_decoder@Base 4.999.8beta-111-g8f8ec94
...
Lintian reports symbols-file-contains-debian-revision. How could it
know otherwise? If no entry in debian/changelog has upstream version
4.999.8beta-111-g8f8ec94, for lack of better options Lintian assumes
the -g8f8ec94 is a Debian revision.
Unfortunately, at least to this naive user, the result suggests that
Lintian would not be happy with any version number with dashes in it.
And that's just not true.
Possible fixes:
* Provide two separate warnings: one for unknown revisions in symbols
files and another for known Debian revisions in symbols files. Or
maybe even three: unknown but no dash, unknown with dash, and known
with dash (since unknown with no dash is usually not a mistake).
* Treat revisions with two or more dashes differently from revisions
with only one dash? (This would handle the example just mentioned, but
generally it seems like a bad idea.)
* Treat packages whose changelogs contain upstream revisions with a
dash differently? (This would handle the example just mentioned, but
generally it seems like an awful idea.)
Thoughts?
Regards,
Jonathan
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