Bug#774381: lintian: False positives for binary-control-field-duplicates-source

[Niels Thykier <niels@thykier.net>]

Control: tags -1 moreinfo

On 2015-01-01 22:13, Riley wrote:
> Package: lintian
> Version: 2.5.30+deb8u3
> Severity: normal
> 
> Hi,
> 
> The lintian tag "binary-control-field-duplicates-source" reports an error when
> there is a duplicate of the "section" field. However, it is often necessary to
> duplicate the section field. For example:
> 
> Package: libxyz0
> Section: libs
> 
> Package: libxyz-common
> Section: libs
> 
> Package: libxyz-dev
> Section: libdevel
> 
> Package: libxyz-doc
> Section: doc
> 
> 
> I propose that this tag not be output for the section tag.
> 
> Yours sincerely,
> 
> Riley Baird
> 
> [...]
> 

Hi,

I believe you might misunderstand the tag.  The case you describe do not
trigger this tag.  Instead, what you have is probably:

"""
*Source*: libxyz
Section: libs

Package: libxyz0
Section: libs
"""

By default, the Section field will copied into the Binary paragraph *if*
the binary paragraph does not have it.  As the Binary paragraph has a
Section field with identical value to the one in *Source* it is
therefore redundant.  That is what this tag warns about.

~Niels