Debian Bug report logs - #446712
Document comments are permitted in debian/control

Display info messages

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

Package: debian-policy
Version: 3.7.2.2
Severity: wishlist
dpkg has supported comments (ignoring lines starting with #) in
debian/control since 1.10.11. We should at least consider documenting
them. (Encountered while processing lintian's bug backlog.)
-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
 APT prefers testing
 APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-4-686 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
-- no debconf information

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Message #12 received at 446712@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

On Sun, Oct 14, 2007 at 18:46:54 -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> dpkg has supported comments (ignoring lines starting with #) in
> debian/control since 1.10.11. We should at least consider documenting
> them. (Encountered while processing lintian's bug backlog.)
> 
Hi,
should this be restricted to debian/control, or apply to all control
files? (deb-control(5) seems to imply the latter, but maybe it's safer
to only allow this in policy 5.2 rather than 5.1.)
I'll try to provide a patch for this.
Cheers,
Julien

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Message #17 received at 446712@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

Julien Cristau <jcristau@debian.org> writes:
> On Sun, Oct 14, 2007 at 18:46:54 -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
>> dpkg has supported comments (ignoring lines starting with #) in
>> debian/control since 1.10.11. We should at least consider documenting
>> them. (Encountered while processing lintian's bug backlog.)
> should this be restricted to debian/control, or apply to all control
> files? (deb-control(5) seems to imply the latter, but maybe it's safer
> to only allow this in policy 5.2 rather than 5.1.)
I suspect that we should restrict it to debian/control, since I believe
dpkg-* will strip out the comments and they may otherwise give other tools
heartburn. Might be good to ask the dpkg developers for a sure response.
> I'll try to provide a patch for this.
That would be great!
-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

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Message #22 received at 446712@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

Hi!
On Mon, 2009年02月02日 at 08:39:38 -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Julien Cristau <jcristau@debian.org> writes:
> > On Sun, Oct 14, 2007 at 18:46:54 -0700, Russ Allbery wrote:
> > > dpkg has supported comments (ignoring lines starting with #) in
> > > debian/control since 1.10.11. We should at least consider documenting
> > > them. (Encountered while processing lintian's bug backlog.)
> 
> > should this be restricted to debian/control, or apply to all control
> > files? (deb-control(5) seems to imply the latter, but maybe it's safer
> > to only allow this in policy 5.2 rather than 5.1.)
The man page is wrong, and that specific part should be moved to
something like dsc-control or similar. We have talked about this in
the team at some point but will probably be doing during 1.15.x.
> I suspect that we should restrict it to debian/control, since I believe
> dpkg-* will strip out the comments and they may otherwise give other tools
> heartburn. Might be good to ask the dpkg developers for a sure response.
All dpkg programs using the C parsing code do not handle # as a comment,
and will happily take it as part of the field name if it contains a colon
(as in «#Foo: bar»), otherwise it will barf about an invalid field.
The dpkg perl programs that use the Dpkg::Control or Dpkg::Cdata modules
do supprort comments.
regards,
guillem

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Message #27 received at 446712@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org> writes:
> On Mon, 2009年02月02日 at 08:39:38 -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:
>> I suspect that we should restrict it to debian/control, since I believe
>> dpkg-* will strip out the comments and they may otherwise give other
>> tools heartburn. Might be good to ask the dpkg developers for a sure
>> response.
>
> All dpkg programs using the C parsing code do not handle # as a comment,
> and will happily take it as part of the field name if it contains a
> colon (as in «#Foo: bar»), otherwise it will barf about an invalid
> field.
>
> The dpkg perl programs that use the Dpkg::Control or Dpkg::Cdata modules
> do supprort comments.
Are there any dpkg programs using C parsing that read debian/control, or
is that only read by Perl programs and therefore can definitely have
comments?
-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

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Message #32 received at 446712@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

On 2009年2月02日, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org> writes:
> > All dpkg programs using the C parsing code do not handle # as a comment,
> > and will happily take it as part of the field name if it contains a
> > colon (as in «#Foo: bar»), otherwise it will barf about an invalid
> > field.
> >
> > The dpkg perl programs that use the Dpkg::Control or Dpkg::Cdata modules
> > do supprort comments.
> 
> Are there any dpkg programs using C parsing that read debian/control, or
No, not that I know.
> is that only read by Perl programs and therefore can definitely have
> comments?
Everything related to the source package is in dpkg-dev and is in
perl or shell.
Cheers,
-- 
Raphaël Hertzog
Le best-seller français mis à jour pour Debian Etch :
http://www.ouaza.com/livre/admin-debian/

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Message #37 received at 446712@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

meh. forgot to actually send this to the bug.
Cheers,
Julien
On Mon, 2009年02月16日 at 18:54 +0100, Julien Cristau wrote:
> ---
> I'm not sure if this is the best place to put this information, so
> suggestions are welcome.
> 
> 
> policy.sgml | 6 ++++++
> 1 files changed, 6 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/policy.sgml b/policy.sgml
> index 36f51aa..ba224f0 100644
> --- a/policy.sgml
> +++ b/policy.sgml
> @@ -2446,6 +2446,12 @@ Package: libc6
> 	 See <ref id="substvars"> for details.
> 	</p>
> 
> + <p>
> + In addition to the control file syntax described <qref
> + id="controlsyntax">above</qref>, this file can also contain lines
> + starting with '#', which are treated as comments.
> + </p>
> +
> </sect>
> 
> <sect id="binarycontrolfiles">
> -- 
> 1.6.1.3
> 
> 

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Message #42 received at 446712@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

Julien Cristau <jcristau@debian.org> writes:
> meh. forgot to actually send this to the bug.
Thank you!
It occurred to me to check behavior with multiline fields as well. Here's
a slightly modified version documenting that. Does this still look good
to you? (And also requesting seconds from others.)
--- a/policy.sgml
+++ b/policy.sgml
@@ -2450,6 +2450,14 @@ Package: libc6
 See <ref id="substvars"> for details.
 </p>
 
+ <p>
+ In addition to the control file syntax described <qref
+ id="controlsyntax">above</qref>, this file may also contain
+ comment lines starting with <tt>#</tt>. All such lines are
+ ignored, even in the middle of continuation lines for a
+ multiline field, and do not end a multiline field.
+ </p>
+
 </sect>
 
 <sect id="binarycontrolfiles">
-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

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Message #47 received at 446712@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

* Russ Allbery [2009年2月28日 22:07:36 -0800]:
> It occurred to me to check behavior with multiline fields as well. Here's
> a slightly modified version documenting that. Does this still look good
> to you? (And also requesting seconds from others.)
> --- a/policy.sgml
> +++ b/policy.sgml
> @@ -2450,6 +2450,14 @@ Package: libc6
> See <ref id="substvars"> for details.
> </p>
> + <p>
> + In addition to the control file syntax described <qref
> + id="controlsyntax">above</qref>, this file may also contain
> + comment lines starting with <tt>#</tt>. All such lines are
> + ignored, even in the middle of continuation lines for a
> + multiline field, and do not end a multiline field.
> + </p>
> +
> </sect>
Seconded, with or without:
> + comment lines starting with <tt>#</tt>
 preceded by no whitespace.
Or some wording to that effect. The rationale is that it's very common
for files that accept #-style comments to accept them if # is preceded
by whitespace, but this is not the case in control files.
Cheers,
-- 
Adeodato Simó dato at net.com.org.es
Debian Developer adeodato at debian.org
 
 Listening to: Vainica Doble - Chinita de Shangai

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Message #52 received at 446712@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 22:07:36 -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Julien Cristau <jcristau@debian.org> writes:
> 
> > meh. forgot to actually send this to the bug.
> 
> Thank you!
> 
> It occurred to me to check behavior with multiline fields as well. Here's
> a slightly modified version documenting that. Does this still look good
> to you? (And also requesting seconds from others.)
> 
Looks good to me, seconded.
Cheers,
Julien

[signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, inline)]

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Message #57 received at 446712@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

Adeodato Simó <dato@net.com.org.es> writes:
> Seconded, with or without:
>
>> + comment lines starting with <tt>#</tt>
> preceded by no whitespace.
>
> Or some wording to that effect. The rationale is that it's very common
> for files that accept #-style comments to accept them if # is preceded
> by whitespace, but this is not the case in control files.
Thanks, good catch. Applied with an addition along those lines.
-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

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Message #64 received at 446712-close@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

Source: debian-policy
Source-Version: 3.8.1.0
We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of
debian-policy, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive:
debian-policy_3.8.1.0.dsc
 to pool/main/d/debian-policy/debian-policy_3.8.1.0.dsc
debian-policy_3.8.1.0.tar.gz
 to pool/main/d/debian-policy/debian-policy_3.8.1.0.tar.gz
debian-policy_3.8.1.0_all.deb
 to pool/main/d/debian-policy/debian-policy_3.8.1.0_all.deb
A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is
attached.
Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed. If you
have further comments please address them to 446712@bugs.debian.org,
and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate.
Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> (supplier of updated debian-policy package)
(This message was generated automatically at their request; if you
believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive
administrators by mailing ftpmaster@debian.org)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Format: 1.8
Date: 2009年3月11日 20:50:52 -0700
Source: debian-policy
Binary: debian-policy
Architecture: source all
Version: 3.8.1.0
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: low
Maintainer: Debian Policy List <debian-policy@lists.debian.org>
Changed-By: Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>
Description: 
 debian-policy - Debian Policy Manual and related documents
Closes: 143941 163666 241333 416450 426877 446712 470994 473019 473439 479080 483418 487701 488039 489460 491985 492624 503685 511804 513955 514326
Changes: 
 debian-policy (3.8.1.0) unstable; urgency=low
 .
 * Policy: Clarify what "sensible behavior" is for init scripts
 Wording: Steve Langasek <vorlon@debian.org>
 Seconded: Raphaël Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>
 Seconded: Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>
 Closes: #426877
 * Policy: Remove alternative changelog formats from main manual
 Wording: Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>
 Seconded: Ben Pfaff <blp@cs.stanford.edu>
 Seconded: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
 Closes: #489460
 * Policy: Mandate UTF-8 for changelog files
 Wording: Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>
 Seconded: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
 Seconded: Kurt Roeckx <kurt@roeckx.be>
 Closes: #241333
 * Policy: Mandate UTF-8 for control files
 Wording: Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>
 Seconded: Kurt Roeckx <kurt@roeckx.be>
 Seconded: Raphaël Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>
 Closes: #143941
 * Policy: New option in DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS to avoid running test-suites
 Wording: Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>
 Seconded: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
 Seconded: Raphaël Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>
 Closes: #416450
 * Policy: Expand expected capabilities for local in /bin/sh scripts
 Wording: Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>
 Seconded: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
 Seconded: Raphaël Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>
 Closes: #473019
 * Policy: Clarify Essential definition and caution when adding to it
 Wording: Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>
 Seconded: Jörg Sommer <joerg@alea.gnuu.de>
 Seconded: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
 Closes: #479080
 * Policy: Allow user mail spools to be mode 0600 or 0660
 Wording: Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>
 Seconded: Kurt Roeckx <kurt@roeckx.be>
 Seconded: Andrew McMillan <awm@debian.org>
 Closes: #470994
 * Policy: Remove special handling of init scripts ending in .sh
 Wording: Kel Modderman <kel@otaku42.de>
 Seconded: Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>
 Seconded: Henrique de Moraes Holschuh <hmh@debian.org>
 Closes: #513955
 * Policy: /var/run and /var/lock may be volatile
 Wording: Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org>
 Seconded: Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>
 Seconded: Bill Allombert <Bill.Allombert@math.u-bordeaux1.fr>
 Closes: #514326
 * Policy: debian/control allows comments starting with #
 Wording: Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>
 Seconded: Julien Cristau <jcristau@debian.org>
 Seconded: Adeodato Simó <dato@net.com.org.es>
 Seconded: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
 Closes: #446712
 * Improve the documentation of maintainer script actions for diversions
 in the informative appendix to allow for addition of a new diversion
 on upgrade and handle error cases correctly. Thanks to Olivier Berger
 for the report and Raphaël Hertzog for the review. (Closes: #483418)
 * Clarify the meaning of architecture restrictions on build dependencies
 in the presence of alternatives. Thanks to Guillem Jover for the
 explanation and review and Emilio Pozuelo Monfort and Don Armstrong
 for wording review. (Closes: #163666)
 * Change the term "category" to "archive area" when referring to main,
 contrib, and non-free. This is closer to the wording of the Social
 Contract. (Closes: #473439)
 * Use <user>:<group> notation rather than <user>.<group> notation in
 multiple places. Thanks, Kurt Roeckx. (Closes: #488039)
 * Fix typo in 3.8.0.0 upgrading-checklist entry. Patch from Kobayashi
 Noritada. (Closes: #487701)
 * Mention debugging packages as an explicit example of packages with
 extra priority. Thanks, Charles Plessy. (Closes: #491985)
 * Clarify that translation is only required for user-visible debconf
 messages. Capitalize "Debian Configuration Management Specification"
 uniformly. Thanks, Julian Andres Klode. (Closes: #492624)
 * Add --wildcards to the sample tar command in appendix B.1 for
 extracting the package copyright file, adjusting for new tar option
 behavior. Thanks, Yan Morin. (Closes: #503685)
 * Reword the requirement that maintainer scripts exit with a zero
 status on success to avoid double-negatives.
 * Include the full name of each menu category rather than only the
 portion relative to the parent heading to be clearer in long category
 lists. Thanks, Christoph Berg. (Closes: #511804)
 * Build-Depend on texlive rather than tetex-extra. texlive appears to
 be sufficient for how Policy uses debiandoc-sgml and pulls in far
 fewer packages.
 * Remove the postinst and prerm scripts. doc-base registration is now
 handled by triggers and no longer required and removal of /usr/doc
 links was completed long ago.
 * Reference GPL-2 rather than the GPL symlink in debian/copyright.
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 a770f0706e0024419f615a7a3f0bad952204c553 642159 debian-policy_3.8.1.0.tar.gz
 e642a568cb83485d06b0db322492e693745bb6ee 1600318 debian-policy_3.8.1.0_all.deb
Checksums-Sha256: 
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 e870fddebf1f5d117165d495274e862262b0bc5044af03cbf6efadde4d1987c4 642159 debian-policy_3.8.1.0.tar.gz
 aabed48106680ea0412d4745cabfe549f1f66a66b401c3fa0377c57625e56d39 1600318 debian-policy_3.8.1.0_all.deb
Files: 
 aedf88a7b4300ad291f58322db840b45 1099 doc optional debian-policy_3.8.1.0.dsc
 2d8e596c21f7b15a78ceeb985a36ed41 642159 doc optional debian-policy_3.8.1.0.tar.gz
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