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Bug#1020248: debian-policy: Clarifying nomenclature for control file names



Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org> writes:

> I've been considering naming debian/control something like
> «Debian template source package control file», as that is used to
> generate both the source and binary control files. And always
> prefixing with Debian, so that would end up as:

>   * debian/control: «Debian source package template control file»
>   * .dsc:           «Debian source package control file»
>   * DEBIAN/control: «Debian binary package control file»

> This also removes the «master» usage in dpkg, for me for the same
> reasons as I covered at
> <https://lists.debian.org/debian-dpkg/2021/03/msg00002.html>.

I like this.  It took a bit for my brain to adjust to it because
"template" felt wrong, but the more I thought about it, the more I think
that's correct and it's pointing out an error in my default way of
thinking about packages.

> File contents
> -------------

> We have references to the various parts being called as «paragraphs»,
> «stanza», «blocks», but this seems to be more of an issue with dpkg, as
> the usage in the Debian policy is quite clear and uniform now, so I'll
> at least try to remove the «block» usage there, stanza has the nice
> property of being shorter and policy already mentions that this is
> currently a common alias, so I might keep paragraph and stanza for now
> in dpkg.

> The other thing affecting dpkg and debian-policy is how the parts
> within the control files are referred to. We have for example:

>   dpkg   → «general section of control info file»
>            «source stanza»
>   policy → «general paragraph»

>   dpkg   → «package's section of control info file»
>   policy → «binary package paragraphs»

> So, how does «source package paragraph» and «binary package paragraph»
> (of the «template control file») sound instead?

As mentioned in the other thread, I think source package stanza and binary
package stanza (of the template control file) sound great.

Obviously a patch to Policy would be delightful, but it's not blocking.
Just let us know if that's more than you have time for.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org)              <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>


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