Bug#780180: lintian: Should check if debian/{changelog,copyright,control} are encoded as UTF-8 if Standards-Version >= 3.9.4/3.8.1

[Axel Beckert <abe@debian.org>]

Package: lintian
Version: 2.5.30+deb8u3
Severity: wishlist

Hi,

lintian should check

* if debian/{changelog,control} are encoded as UTF-8 if
  Standards-Version is >= 3.8.1, and

* if debian/copyright is encoded as UTF-8 if Standards-Version is >=
  3.9.4.

I haven't checked if it already does that, but on
https://lintian.debian.org/tags-all.html there is only one tag listed
which contains "utf" in its name, so I assume that no such check yet
exists.

(I'm also willing to write that test. The idea for that test just came
during breakfast when reading pabs' Misc Developer News about
check-all-the-things and I needed to dump it somewhere quickly. The BTS
seems the best place for that. :-)

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 8.0
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (990, 'unstable'), (600, 'testing'), (110, 'experimental'), (109, 'buildd-unstable'), (109, 'buildd-experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 3.19.0-trunk-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=C.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=C.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages lintian depends on:
ii  binutils                       2.25-5
ii  bzip2                          1.0.6-7+b2
ii  diffstat                       1.58-1
ii  file                           1:5.22+15-1
ii  gettext                        0.19.3-2
ii  hardening-includes             2.7
ii  intltool-debian                0.35.0+20060710.1
ii  libapt-pkg-perl                0.1.29+b2
ii  libarchive-zip-perl            1.39-1
ii  libclass-accessor-perl         0.34-1
ii  libclone-perl                  0.37-1+b1
ii  libdpkg-perl                   1.17.24
ii  libemail-valid-perl            1.195-1
ii  libfile-basedir-perl           0.03-1
ii  libipc-run-perl                0.92-1
ii  liblist-moreutils-perl         0.33-2+b1
ii  libparse-debianchangelog-perl  1.2.0-1.1
ii  libtext-levenshtein-perl       0.11-1
ii  libtimedate-perl               2.3000-2
ii  liburi-perl                    1.64-1
ii  man-db                         2.7.0.2-5
ii  patchutils                     0.3.3-1
ii  perl [libdigest-sha-perl]      5.20.2-2
ii  t1utils                        1.38-4

Versions of packages lintian recommends:
ii  libautodie-perl                 2.25-1
ii  libperlio-gzip-perl             0.18-3+b1
ii  perl                            5.20.2-2
ii  perl-modules [libautodie-perl]  5.20.2-2

Versions of packages lintian suggests:
ii  binutils-multiarch     2.25-5
ii  dpkg-dev               1.17.24
ii  libhtml-parser-perl    3.71-1+b3
ii  libtext-template-perl  1.46-1
ii  libyaml-perl           1.13-1
ii  xz-utils               5.1.1alpha+20120614-2+b3

-- no debconf information