Re: .changes files as first-class objects

["Adam D. Barratt" <adam@adam-barratt.org.uk>]

On Sun, 2010-01-17 at 22:40 -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:
> If is_lab() returns true for a lab without the changes directory, can
> Lintian then fix the lab on the fly to have that directory?

We don't currently have the means to do so.  In fact, we don't have a
means to update the structure of a lab itself, rather than the package
data contained within it.

So far as I can see, the last time such a change was made was in 2004,
when udeb support was added.  At that point, what is now Lab::is_lab()
(and was at the time still part of the frontend process) was updated to
require the udeb top-level directory to exist; the upgrade path for
static labs appears to have been "add the udeb directory".

We could take this opportunity to add a format specification to the
top-level lab folder to allow such cases to be handled, either by
reusing the existing $LAB_FORMAT or separating the two format versions.
A lab without such a format file would be assumed to need upgrading to
the current version; either is_lab() or Lab::setup() could handle the
upgrade, ensuring that the lab's structure is up-to-date.

Of course, it's possible I'm over-thinking this. :-)

Adam