Re: Some files in /usr/share/doc/foo stay uncompressed, some are compressed

["Nelson A. de Oliveira" <naoliv@gmail.com>]

I answered just for Marc, so forwarding it to the list.

Hi Marc!

On 2/12/06, Marc Haber <mh+debian-mentors@zugschlus.de> wrote:
> exim4-doc-html includes the exim FAQ, which is a bunch of HTML files
> and some configuration examples as .txt, in
> /usr/share/doc/exim4-doc-html/html. The larger of these .txt files are
> compressed by the build processs, while the smaller of them stay
> uncompressed. This is confusing.

>From dh_compress manual:

       By default, dh_compress compresses files that debian policy mandates
       should be compressed, namely all files in usr/share/info,
       usr/share/man, usr/X11R6/man, files in usr/share/doc that are larger
       than 4k in size, (except the copyright file, .html and .css files, and
       files that appear to be already compressed based on their extensions),
       and all changelog files. Plus PCF fonts underneath
       usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/

> I am now wondering whether it is acceptable to compress all of the
> .txt files, or to keep all of them uncompressed. Which would be the
> lesser evil?

Less evil is let them all compressed.
But there are files that can't be compressed and there could be files
that you may want to let them uncompressed.
In general, dh_compress will do the right job for you.

Best regards,
Nelson