On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 07:05:31PM +0200, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote:
> Interestingly enough, the Debian policy is ambiguous about what are
> the paragraph separators in debian/control. Section 5.1 first states
> that blank lines are separators (which is usually interpreted as "\n"
> alone):
>
> A control file consists of one or more paragraphs of fields[1].
> The paragraphs are separated by blank lines.
>
> Then, later on, it seems to allow for other blank characters,
> mentioning spaces and tabs:
>
> Blank lines, or lines consisting only of spaces and tabs, are not
> allowed within field values or between fields - that would mean a
> new paragraph.
>
> If generic blanks (space, tabs, ...) are the intended separators I've
> no objection in fixing the bug as you propose. Cloning/reassigning
> this bug to policy, as it needs to be discussed there as well.
Heya, policy maintainers, can you please give us a bit of feedback on
your "draft" stance on this issue?
I _think_ I'm going to apply the proposed patch in python-debian,
i.e. allow for "liberal" blank lines as stanza separators, on the
basis that:
- it is my feeling than that interpretation is the one the policy
intended (according to the second paragraph I quoted)
- apparently there are out there Packages using liberal separators
Still, I would have preferred to have at least an idea of how you plan
to clarify this, even if the clarification will come later on.
Many thanks in advance.
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli -o- PhD in Computer Science \ PostDoc @ Univ. Paris 7
zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} -<>- http://upsilon.cc/zack/
Dietro un grande uomo c'è ..| . |. Et ne m'en veux pas si je te tutoie
sempre uno zaino ...........| ..: |.... Je dis tu à tous ceux que j'aime
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