Bug#699022: lintian: checks/po-debconf modifies extracted "package"

[Niels Thykier <niels@thykier.net>]

Package: lintian
Version: 2.5.11
Severity: minor

This bug is probably more about principle than a practical issue.

checks/po-debconf modifies the contents of debfiles/, particularly
it generates/overrides debfiles/po/test.pot[1].  "test" is probably
never going to be a valid language code and maintainers are unlikely
to include a "test.pot" file.

However, it means that checks/po-debconf changes the view of the
package.  I think this is (in general) unhealthy for Lintian to do
this in checks as results could (in theory) change depending on the
order in which checks are run.
  It also prevents anyone with "read-only" access to obtain accurate
results for this tag[2].

~Niels


[1] Quote:
"""
if (-x '/usr/bin/msgcmp' && -x '/usr/share/intltool-debian/intltool-update' ) {
    if ($missing_files == 0) {
        $ENV{'INTLTOOL_EXTRACT'} ||= '/usr/share/intltool-debian/intltool-extract';
        system_env("cd \Q$debfiles/po\E && /usr/share/intltool-debian/intltool-update --gettext-package=test --pot");
        system_env("/usr/bin/msgcmp --use-untranslated \Q$debfiles/po/test.pot\E \Q$debfiles/po/templates.pot\E >/dev/null 2>&1"
                   . "&& /usr/bin/msgcmp --use-untranslated \Q$debfiles/po/templates.pot\E \Q$debfiles/po/test.pot\E >/dev/null 2>&1") == 0
                or tag 'newer-debconf-templates';
    }
[...[
"""

[2] A DD can in theory ssh to lintian.d.o and (re)run lintian on a
package of their choice with -C po-debconf as it does not need
"unpacked".  In practise, I doubt anyone will^Wdoes.