Bug#1125088: Bug#1103647: /usr/bin/grep-excuses: Wide character in print at /usr/bin/grep-excuses line 364

[Agustin Martin]

El dom, 22 mar 2026 a las 16:48, Colin Watson (<cjwat...@debian.org>) escribió:
>
> On Sun, Mar 22, 2026 at 01:52:01AM +0100, Agustin Martin wrote:
> > Most messages come from the bullet operator used by the PTS, so if we
> > try only to keep that quiet, attached patch may help (it changes bullet
> > operator to "o" char). This is not a full fix since maintainers name
> > can have non-ASCII chars and that would trigger a message, but at
> > least should make those messages way more unusual. If we really do not want
> > to unconditionally hardcode UTF-8 it may be an option, with the known
> > problems.
>
> While something like this could help in that limited situation, on
> principle I'm not at all keen on a fix that only helps people whose
> names fit into ASCII.

I have noticed that all wide char messages come from that bullet
operator. Maintainer names with non-ASCII chars do not trigger a
warning, just have those chars rendered wrong in my terminal (with or
without the bullet replacement).

I do not expect many people using grep-excuses from a non UTF8
terminal, so setting output to UTF8 as you propose seems cleaner and
should not be a problem. Another way to set STDOUT to utf8 is

--- grep-excuses.orig    2026-03-21 21:20:18.000000000 +0100
+++ grep-excuses    2026-03-23 17:05:50.310235332 +0100
@@ -27,6 +27,8 @@
 use File::Basename;
 use File::HomeDir;

+binmode STDOUT, ':encoding(UTF-8)';
+
 sub require_friendly ($) {
     my ($mod) = @_;
     return if eval "require $mod;";

For those curious I am attaching a couple of diffs for other ways I tried.

--- grep-excuses.orig	2026-03-21 21:20:18.000000000 +0100
+++ grep-excuses.text_unidecode	2026-03-21 21:47:15.000000000 +0100
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@
 use Dpkg::Path qw(find_command);
 use File::Basename;
 use File::HomeDir;
+use Text::Unidecode;
 
 sub require_friendly ($) {
     my ($mod) = @_;
@@ -361,7 +362,7 @@
         $excuse                      =~ s@</?[^>]+>@@g;
         $excuse                      =~ s@&lt;@<@g;
         $excuse                      =~ s@&gt;@>@g;
-        print "    $excuse\n";
+        print "    ", unidecode($excuse), "\n";
     }
 }
 

--- grep-excuses.orig	2026-03-21 21:20:18.000000000 +0100
+++ grep-excuses.libencode-locale-perl	2026-03-23 17:04:45.587399761 +0100
@@ -26,6 +26,12 @@
 use Dpkg::Path qw(find_command);
 use File::Basename;
 use File::HomeDir;
+use Encode::Locale;
+use Encode;
+
+binmode STDIN,  ':encoding(console_in)';
+binmode STDOUT, ':encoding(console_out)';
+binmode STDERR, ':encoding(console_out)';
 
 sub require_friendly ($) {
     my ($mod) = @_;
@@ -361,6 +367,7 @@
         $excuse                      =~ s@</?[^>]+>@@g;
         $excuse                      =~ s@&lt;@<@g;
         $excuse                      =~ s@&gt;@>@g;
+        $excuse                      =  encode(locale => $excuse);
         print "    $excuse\n";
     }
 }