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Re: DEP-5: general file syntax



On Wed, 18 Aug 2010 09:29:33 +1200, Lars Wirzenius <liw@liw.fi> wrote:
> For simplicity, I will introduce a new term, "desc-escape". This refers
> to the escaping of content similar to the way Description does it in
> debian/control: each line is prefixed with a space, except empty lines
> are replaced with a space and period. The Policy's specification is not
> usable for this, I think, because it goes much further than what DEP-5
> needs.
> 
> Note that I've dropped the possibility of prefixing escaped lines with a
> TAB character. It is a needless difference from Description, and would
> complicate parsers.
> 
> So there are three cases:
> 
> * License: newlines are significant, no word-wrapping, desc-escape is
> used.

We could always use the same convention as in Description: 

  http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-controlfields.html#s-f-Description

where a single space prefix indicates wrappable text, and two spaces
indicates verbatim.

That also deals with the case of the original text containing
a line with a single full-stop, as that could be included by prefixing it
with two spaces.

Mechanical conversions could just add two spaces by default, and if
anyone can be bothered, paragraphs that would be fine word-wrapped could
then be back-indented one space by hand.

Cheers, Phil.
-- 
|)|  Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560]    http://www.hands.com/
|-|  HANDS.COM Ltd.                    http://www.uk.debian.org/
|(|  10 Onslow Gardens, South Woodford, London  E18 1NE  ENGLAND

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