Bug#1005049: lintian: incorrect leading comma in "sub oxford_enumeration"

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

Package: lintian
Version: 2.114.0
Severity: minor

Hi,

I see output like this:

N:   Please refer to , Debian Developer's Reference section 3.1.4, Debian
N:   Policy Manual section 4.3, and Bug#755153 for details.
                    ^^^

The code in question is as follows:

  sub oxford_enumeration {
      my ($self, $conjunctive, @alternatives) = @_;

      return $EMPTY
        unless @alternatives;

      # remove and save last element
      my $final = pop @alternatives;

      my $maybe_comma = (@alternatives > 1 ? $COMMA : $EMPTY);

      my $text = $EMPTY;
      $text = join($COMMA . $SPACE, @alternatives) . "$maybe_comma $conjunctive "
        if @alternatives;

      $text .= $final;

      return $text;
  }

I don't think the "join($COMMA . $SPACE, @alternatives)" is right,
otherwise the first item in the list starts with a comma, as we can
see in the output quoted above.

(I would change it directly, but I can't immediately grok what is going
on with $maybe_comma, etc. so I don't want to break anything.)


Regards,

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