Re: Strange Dependancies

[Ian Jackson <ian@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Jason Gunthorpe writes ("Strange Dependancies"):
...
> I have just added support in APT for constructs like:
...
> Depends: libc6, sp (>= 1.1.1-3), sgml-data (>= 0.02),
>          sgml-base, gawk, perl (>= 5.004.04-4)
...
> (note the multiple lines used for the depends)
...
> I got a bug report effectively saying that dpkg permits this. Till then I
> had thought it was invalid. only xzip and sgml-tools make use of this.

Packaging manual, s4.1 (Syntax of control files):
  Some fields' values may span several lines; in this case each
  continuation line must start with a space or tab. Any trailing spaces
  or tabs at the end of individual lines of a field value are ignored.

  Except where otherwise stated only a single line of data is allowed
  and whitespace is not significant in a field body. Whitespace may
  never appear inside names (of packages, architectures, files or
  anything else), version numbers or in between the characters of
  multi-character version relationships.

It isn't otherwise stated, except that in s8.1 (Syntax of relationship
fields):
  Whitespace may appear at any point in the version specification, and
  must appear where it's necessary to disambiguate; it is not otherwise
  significant.

Note that it says `whitespace', not `horizontal whitespace.'  A strict
interpretation of this is that you can break lines, but only inside
the parentheses, so the example above is illegal but this is legal:

Depends: libc6, sp (>= 1.1.1-3), sgml-data (>= 0.02
         ), sgml-base, gawk, perl (>= 5.004.04-4)

This is clearly silly.  I think we should state that dependency
relationship fields may span lines.

Ian.


--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-policy-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org