Bug#666726: debian-policy: Clarify if empty control fields are ollowed or not
On Mon, Nov 24, 2014 at 08:58:44AM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote:
> Hi Henrique and Bill,
>
> first, on the original purpose of this bug, it is to document that empty fields
> in binary package control files are not supported and can crash tools such as
> apt. There, "empty" meant that the semicolon at the end of a field name is
> followed by a newline character. A member FTP team answered to the submitter
> by confirming that binary packages with empty fields in their control file are
> rejected from the Debian archive.
>
> I think that we all agree to document that fields must not be empty in binary
> package control files.
Agreed.
> Let's see the other points under discussion.
>
> * The definition of "empty". Henrique has used the word "empty" to designate
> fields of a source package control file that contain a substitution variable
> that may not contain a value at build time. I think that this complicates the
> defintion of "empty" too much, since in that case one has to build a package to
> determine if a field is empty or not.
Unfortunately that is an interpretation of "empty" that is natural to people used to
variable substitution (one tends to think subconciously of the document as if all
substutions has been performed). Thus some readers will interpret it this way even
if we like it to mean something else.
> The answer would even depend on the
> state of the archive ! Regarding the submitter's definition, it is a bit
> stricter than what the syntax of control fields allows, where a field in which
> the colon after the name is followed by spaces is also empty.
>
> * Whether to disallow empty fields in other control files. I have not seen empty
> fields elsewhere, and I am not aware of plan to use some. Empty fields are not
> used when a field is solely needed as a flag, such as the "Essential" field.
> Altogether, I think that it would be neater to clarify the section about the syntax
> of control files that fields must not be empty, than to make this a special
> restriction of binary package control files.
But at this point, there is no consensus that such empty fields should be
forbidden in source packages and they have been allowed for a long time
(and discarded by dpkg-gencontrol).
Thus I would like to restrict this bug to what is agreed, i.e. binary
package control files. This also side-step nicely the definition of "empty".
Cheers,
--
Bill. <ballombe@debian.org>
Imagine a large red swirl here.
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