Bug#555978: debian-policy: Forbid duplicate fields in control files

[Charles Plessy <plessy@debian.org>]

Le Fri, Jun 11, 2010 at 09:58:28AM -0700, Russ Allbery a écrit :
> 
> diff --git a/policy.sgml b/policy.sgml
> index 87b9795..99ab0ff 100644
> --- a/policy.sgml
> +++ b/policy.sgml
> @@ -2398,6 +2398,11 @@ Package: libc6
>  	</p>
>  
>  	<p>
> +	  Each paragraph may contain at most one instance of a particular
> +	  field name.
> +	</p>
> +
> +	<p>
>  	  Many fields' values may span several lines; in this case
>  	  each continuation line must start with a space or a tab.
>  	  Any trailing spaces or tabs at the end of individual

Hi Russ,

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.”

Have a nice day,

-- 
Charles Plessy
Illkirch, France