Re: What defines the format of the NEWS.Debian file?
On Sun, May 23, 2010 at 08:23:08PM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> I am working on a package that triggers the Lintian tag
> ‘debian-news-entry-without-blank-line’. This prompted me to look
> for a formal description of the format of NEWS.Debian. The problem
> is:
>
> - It is not documented in the Policy that changelogs must finish by an empty
> line (and NEWS.Debian files are not mentionned at all),
NEWS.Debian is supposed to be in the same format as changelog.Debian.
> - The Developer's Reference recommends to use dpkg-parsechangelog, and gives
> an example that does not include a trailing white line, which is parsed
> without warnings by dpkg-parsechangelog.
apt-listchanges is priority standard and dpkg-dev is priority optional,
so apt-listchanges cannot use dpkg-parsechangelog.
Beside devref is not normative.
> - Lintian motivates its tag by the behaviour of apt-listchanges, but is
> apt-listchanges normative for NEWS.Debian, or is it just a consumer of it?
Historically, NEWS.Debian was introduced to be used by apt-listchanges.
Since NEWS.Debian is not mentionned in policy, lintian is correct in
requesting that NEWS.Debian follows the format required by
apt-listchanges.
Whether this is a bug in apt-listchanges is a different question.
Cheers,
--
Bill. <ballombe@debian.org>
Imagine a large red swirl here.
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