[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: watch files



On Sun, 06 Jan 2008 21:12:29 +0000, Julian Mehnle wrote:

> > I'm not really sure if this is really a matter of policy, but if
> > others find it useful I'm happy to write a short paragraph mentioning
> > that and why a watchfile is useful and writing down the proposed
> > pattern.
> Well, not that I think this actually needs to be policy, but if we go out 
> of our way to adjust all our packages to match a single scheme, then how 
> can it not be considered policy?

It could be considered "best practice to make our lives easier" :)

Anyway, mentioning watch files in policy is no error I guess. Here
goes the first proposal:

--- policy.pod.orig	2008-01-07 19:34:05.000000000 +0100
+++ policy.pod	2008-01-07 19:51:51.000000000 +0100
@@ -25,13 +25,15 @@
 
 =item 3. L<debian/control handling|/"debian/control handling">
 
-=item 4. L<Debian Maintainers practice|/"Debian Maintainers practice">
+=item 4. L<debian/watch handling|/"debian/watch handling">
 
-=item 5. L<Release Process|/"Release Process">
+=item 5. L<Debian Maintainers practice|/"Debian Maintainers practice">
 
-=item 6. L<Authors|/"Authors">
+=item 6. L<Release Process|/"Release Process">
 
-=item 7. L<License|/"License">
+=item 7. L<Authors|/"Authors">
+
+=item 8. L<License|/"License">
 
 =back
 
@@ -135,6 +137,19 @@
 suggest you don't use cdbs as part of the build process for packages intended
 to be group-maintained.
 
+=head1 debian/watch handling
+
+Each package should have a watch file (F<debian/watch>) to make manual and
+automatic checking for new upstream versions easier. The recommended format
+for a watch file for a typical module I<libfoo-bar-perl> hosted on CPAN is:
+
+ version=3
+ http://search.cpan.org/dist/Foo-Bar/ .*/Foo-Bar-v?(\d[\d_.]+)\.(?:tar(?:\.gz|\.bz2)?|tgz|zip)
+
+(Scanning the distribution based CPAN URLs is usually much faster than
+scanning /(by-)module/ ones; author-based URLs become invalid as soon as
+there's a change in maintainership.)
+
 =head1 Debian Maintainers practice
 
 This section describes briefly how the Debian Maintainers (DM) concept (cf.


Comments welcome!


Cheers,
gregor

-- 
 .''`.   http://info.comodo.priv.at/ | gpg key ID: 0x00F3CFE4
 : :' :  debian: the universal operating system - http://www.debian.org/
 `. `'   member of https://www.vibe.at/ | how to reply: http://got.to/quote/
   `-    NP: Pogues: Honky Tonk Women

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: Digital signature


Reply to: