Bug#1094594: apt: modernize-sources: please add option to output to stdout

[Johannes Schauer Marin Rodrigues <josch@debian.org>]

Hi,

Quoting Martin-Éric Racine (2025-01-29 07:55:45)
> This being said, would it be possible to add an option to work on files at
> arbitrary locations and output them to stdout? This would allow someone to
> perform a conversion on files for other hosts and then distribute the results
> manually.

I second this request for a different reason.

The one-line format is a very compact way for working with apt sources. For
example the mmdebstrap man page suggests this example:

    --setup-hook='echo "deb http..." > "$1"/etc/apt/sources.list.d/custom.list'

If modernize-sources would be able to turn one-line format on standard input
into deb822 format on standard-output, the above could become:

    --setup-hook='echo "deb http..." | modernize-sources > "$1"/etc/apt/sources.list.d/custom.list'

I'd find that much nicer than the alternative which would be to either write
multi-line deb822 content as part of a CLI invocation or first write the
one-line format to /etc/apt/sources.list and then run modernize-sources.

Thanks!

cheers, josch

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