Re: [DEP-5] [patch] Syntax of the files.
Le Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 05:08:47AM +1200, Lars Wirzenius a écrit :
>
> I propose, in the description of the License field:
>
> * Remaining lines: Each non-empty line of the license text
> should be prefixed by a single space or TAB character. Empty
> lines should be replaced with a line consisting of a space or
> TAB followed by a period. (Empty lines lines contain nothing, or
> only whitespace
> characters.) If a debian/copyright file is formatted for
> display, the license text is not expected to be word-wrapped,
> but displayed as if it were program code, so that license text
> that uses one of the many conventions for plain text formatting
> will display OK.
>
> You say:
>
> In field values, lines containing a single space followed by a
> single full stop character are replaced by an empty line. The
> first space or tabulation is ignored.
>
> Why would a TAB+period not be acceptable for escaping an empty line?
Good morning Lars,
TAB+period would be fine with me. The first sentence in the extract above
is inspired by §5.6.13:
[Lines] containing a single space followed by a single full stop character.
These are rendered as blank lines. This is the only way to get a blank
line.
In deb-control(5), it is:
Each line of the long description must be preceded by a space, and blank
lines in the long description must contain a single ’.’ following the preceding
space.
But since multi-line fields in the DEP are not to be parsed exactly like
Description fields in Debian control files, we can deviate from this.
In your proposed changes above, the explanations are added to the description
of the license field. But there is at least another field where people used to
Debian control files may want to use escaped empty lines: the Disclaimer field.
Also, if the consensus is reached for a Comment field, this field would also
benefit from escaped blank lines. For all these reasons, I propose that escaped
empty lines are described in the Syntax section.
Lastly, for the indication of the version number of the Policy, I still think
it is necessary. Your argument is that in case the Policy is changed, the DEP
would need to be updated. But this is exactly the purpose: if the Policy is
changed, but not the DEP, then each record indicating this version of the DEP
in its Format field may become invalid.
The problem with indicating its version is that the Policy may be updated many
times without changes in section 5.1, which may make the version indicated in
the DEP difficult to find. How about including a verbatim copy of §5.1 in the
DEP? It is not so big, and would be convenient for the readers.
Cheers,
--
Charles Plessy
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan
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