Bug#573815: missing-separator-between-items error is too strict

[Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>]

Matthias Klose <doko@debian.org> writes:

> lintian complains about:

> E: gcc-defaults source: missing-separator-between-items in gcc depends
> field between 'gcc-${pv:gcc}' and '${reqv:gcc}'

> Package: gcc
> Depends: cpp (>= ${version:cpp}), gcc-${pv:gcc} ${reqv:gcc}, ${misc:Depends}

> imo, this is too strict. maybe make it an information or a warning, but an
> error is too strict.

Most of the time, exactly that pattern is a latent bug that can cause
unexpected FTBFS after build helper changes because it's something like:

    ${shlibs:Depends} ${misc:Depends}

What you're doing here is quite a bit rarer than such a mistake.  Take a
look at:

    http://lintian.debian.org/tags/missing-separator-between-items.html

gcc-defaults is the only package where this isn't a clear bug.  Because of
that, lowering the severity or certainty doesn't seem like a good idea to
me.

I think a better approach may be to just special-case your particular use
of substvars, since it appears to be the only one in the archive using
substvars in that way.  That can either be done with an override on your
side for that one package or a special case in Lintian.  I think Lintian
would have to do something like special-case reqv:* substvars, since I
don't see any other obvious way of knowing that this will be okay.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>