Bug#533852: debian-policy: Allow Binary field to span over multiple lines
Raphaël Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org> writes:
> In response to http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=494714
> I would like that the policy be updated to allow the Binary field in
> .dsc and .changes to span over multiple lines.
This would be the first field in .dsc and .changes that would permit
continuation lines.
I'd rather not do this one-by-one if we're going to make a change here,
particularly since it's already confusing what fields permit
continuation lines and which don't. Currently, we have a fairly clean
separation in that some lines in debian/control can be wrapped, but
nothing in *.dsc, *.changes, or DEBIAN/control may be wrapped except the
fields whose content includes newlines in the format. Before we change
that fairly clean separation, I'd like to know where our long-term
direction is here and whether we should be planning to support wrapping
every field.
Given that *.dsc, *.changes, and DEBIAN/control are not usually edited
by humans and are generally only interpreted by programs, I question the
point of adding complexity to everything else in Debian to support
continuation lines there. I think the current system, where all the
tools that read debian/control and generate other files from it unwrap
all the lines, makes a lot of technical sense.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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