Bug#555978: debian-policy: Forbid duplicate fields in control files
On Sat, Jun 12, 2010 at 10:35:22AM -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> writes:
> > Andrew McMillan <andrew@morphoss.com> writes:
> >> On Sat, 2010-06-12 at 18:18 +0900, Charles Plessy wrote:
> >>> as a non-native speaker, I have difficulties with the use of 'may' in
> >>> your patch: if fields may be unique, they also may be not unique, so
> >>> what is the message in this sentence? It does not give me the
> >>> impression that the goal is to discourage the use of the same field
> >>> name twice in the same paragraph.
> >>> How about “A paragraph should not contain data fields having the same
> >>> name.”
> >> In this sense 'may' should be read as 'must', however I think that if
> >> it causes readability issues for non-native english speakers then the
> >> word 'must' should actually be used...
> >> "Each paragraph must contain at most one instance of a particular
> >> field name."
> >> Is that clearer?
> > Yes, indeed, that's what I meant; I'll go with that (assuming that
> > doesn't have a different clarity problem that I'm missing).
> Hm, actually, better (slightly less awkward, I think):
> A paragraph must not contain more than one instance of a particular
> field name.
Seconded.
Cheers,
--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
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