Re: scripting automated lintian fixes

["Chris Lamb " <lamby@debian.org>]

[adding isomer@gmail.com to CC]

Dear Jelmer,

Thanks for getting in touch.

> It looks like you are the other two committers of many automated changes across
> Debian for various simple lintian issues.

So, as you know, "changes across Debian" is somewhat ambiguous as the
actual-canonical source for Debian is not even (!) on salsa.d.o or the
specified Vcs-*. Are you referring to my changes in the Debian Python
Module Team? (I can't think of any other such large changes I have made.)

Alas, my "scripts" are literally horrible shell one-liners such as the
following recovered from my ~/.histfile:

  $ cd /home/lamby/git/debian/python-team/modules; for X in */; do (cd $X; pwd; sed -i -e 's@[[:space:]]*$@@g' debian/control debian/changelog; sed -i -e 's@[ ]*$@@g' debian/rules; sed -i -e :a -e '/^\n*$/{$d;N;};/\n$/ba' debian/rules debian/control debian/changelog debian/copyright; git add debian/control debian/changelog debian/rules debian/copyright && git commit -m "Remove trailing whitespaces." && read PAUSE && git push); done
 
Some quick thoughts before I head to bed:

 * I wonder if this could be incorporated in lintian.git. At the very
   least this might ensure that things stay-up-date and we could even
   grow some kind of "--auto-fix" (or, more-likely, a separate command
   but whatever..)

 * I feel, personally, that I can move the needle more effectively on
   QA efforts in Debian by focusing on implementing new checks, most of
   which cannot be sedded away.
   
   I thus won't be in a position to contribute here in the short- to
   medium-term. Naturally, I would not stop in anyone's way making such
   changes nor question their value - it's just a time tradeoff for me.


Best wishes,

-- 
      ,''`.
     : :'  :     Chris Lamb
     `. `'`      lamby@debian.org / chris-lamb.co.uk
       `-