Package: less
Version: 394-4
Followup-For: Bug #432002
I'm sweeping the high-popcon packages for outdated descriptions.
This obvious case has already been reported, but the submitter was
seemingly unaware of the most obvious anachronism of all:
# Less uses
# termcap (or terminfo on some systems), so it can run on a variety of
# terminals. There is even limited support for hardcopy terminals.
This is pointless misinformation; Debian no longer has
termcap-compat even in oldlibs.
Another independent drawback of basing the package description on
the man page is that less*.deb isn't /usr/bin/less. The package
also provides utilities such as /usr/bin/lesspipe, and indeed it's
these associated scripts that really differentiate less from
alternative pagers such as most.
I attach a patch building on A. Costa's suggestion (but also
trimming the dependency on Bo-era debianutils, and doing my best to
make sure the text matches up to the usual debian-l10n-english
recommendations - e.g. no capitalisation of the synopsis line.
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}
Description: pager program similar to more
This package provides "less", a file pager (that is, a memory-efficient
utility for displaying text one screenful at a time). Unlike the basic
pager "more", it is capable of backward as well as forward navigation
through a file. As part of the GNU project, it is widely regarded as
the standard pager on UNIX-derived systems.
.
Also included are "lessecho", a simple utility for ensuring arguments
with spaces are correctly quoted; "lesskey", a tool for modifying the
standard (vi-like) keybindings; and "lesspipe", a filter for specific
types of input, such as .doc or .txt.gz files.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.25.custom
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Versions of packages less depends on:
ii debianutils 2.28.4 Miscellaneous utilities specific t
ii libc6 2.7-10 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii libncurses5 5.6+20080308-1 Shared libraries for terminal hand
less recommends no packages.
-- no debconf information
--
JBR
Ankh kak! (Ancient Egyptian blessing)
diff -ru less-418.pristine/debian/control less-418/debian/control
--- less-418.pristine/debian/control 2008-06-11 20:28:21.000000000 +0100
+++ less-418/debian/control 2008-06-11 20:34:47.000000000 +0100
@@ -8,11 +8,15 @@
Package: less
Architecture: any
-Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}, debianutils (>= 1.8)
-Description: Pager program similar to more
- Less is a program similar to more(1), but which allows backward
- movement in the file as well as forward movement. Also, less does not
- have to read the entire input file before starting, so with large input
- files it starts up faster than text editors like vi(1). Less uses
- termcap (or terminfo on some systems), so it can run on a variety of
- terminals. There is even limited support for hardcopy terminals.
+Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}
+Description: pager program similar to more
+ This package provides "less", a file pager (that is, a memory-efficient
+ utility for displaying text one screenful at a time). Unlike the basic
+ pager "more", it is capable of both backward and forward navigation
+ through a file. As part of the GNU project, it is widely regarded as
+ the standard pager on UNIX-derived systems.
+ .
+ Also provided are "lessecho", a simple utility for ensuring arguments
+ with spaces are correctly quoted; "lesskey", a tool for modifying the
+ standard (vi-like) keybindings; and "lesspipe", a filter for specific
+ types of input, such as .doc or .txt.gz files.
