Bug#722710: apt: Incorrect error message for missing data.tar.* segment.

[Len Sorensen <lennartsorensen@ruggedcom.com>]

On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 12:37:22PM -0400, David Kalnischkies wrote:
> That was me and at the time I wrote this it was a big gain because this
> code was to be backported to squeeze and I am pretty sure our chessy
> l10n god would have killed me otherwise (and I value my life). ;)
> And as I didn't want to be killed by the release team either it was introduced
> in unstable/wheezy unchanged first (a month before in that case).

Fair enough.

> That the fixme was never fixed is just what happens if you are distracted by
> other stuff for a month, so that you forget it – and apt-inst code is code not
> read/changed very often, so you either rediscover it by accident or you don't…

It certainly looked forgotten.  I wonder if any of us ever remember to
grep our own code for 'FIXME' tags.  I better go check my own code now...

> I know its easier said than done, but the take home lesson is:
> If you think something else has a bug, think again and check that
> your inputs are correct before proceeding. (I fell into that trap far to
> often myself, so yes it frustrating, but anger doesn't help)

I didn't even expect a bug.  I thought I must have something installed
that was old enough to not support xz compression somehow.  I just didn't
think that was supposed to be the case.

> And for the record, I haven't changed the string yet, but I guess it will be
> "This is not a valid DEB archive, it has no data.tar member." given that
> there are plans for uncompressed members and its not unlikely we would
> have the same "lets backport $compressor-support" in the future.

I was thinking that would be a better string.  Avoid translation issues
in the future if additional types are added.  The error could get pretty
long too.

Thanks.

-- 
Len Sorensen