Raphael Hertzog wrote: > On Tue, 24 Mar 2009, Raphael Hertzog wrote: > So I guess the request is that dpkg-deb doesn't complain about > X-* fields created with XB-X-* in debian/control. > > That looks reasonable indeed. Should that be documented somewhere ? I'd suggest section 5.7 "User-defined fields" of the debian policy manual. Something like the following:
Usually, unknown fields are iggnored by the debian packaging system. To avoid conflicts of user defined fields with field that may be used by debian in the future, we suggest to use field names starting with X- (so you need to put X[BCS]-X-foo into the control file) which are guaranteed to never conflict with future official fields. That has the added bonus that dpkg-gencontrol will not issue warnings about user defined fields at package build time. It may be documented in the dpkg-gencontrol manpage as well, because it has the -D option to include or change fields of the control file. At work we add a buildinfo field, recording what branch and revision a package has been built from, and my motivation for the patch was to avoid dpkg-deb's warnings which generate noise that may hide real problems. And yes, we add these fields via arguments to dpkg-gencontrol, not via XB-X-* fields in the original control file, having the advantage that we don't need to touch the control files of originial sources. -- Mit freundlichen Grüßen / with kind regards Nils Rennebarth, Software Developer -- Funkwerk IP-Appliances GmbH Mönchhaldenstraße 28 D-70191 Stuttgart Tel: +49 711 900300 - 0 Fax: +49 711 900300 - 90 E-Mail: [email protected] Location: GmbH Neu-Ulm, Local Court Memmingen, HRB 13043 Managing Directors: Michael Marsanu, Steffen Herrmann -------------------------------- The information contained in this e-mail has been carefully researched, but the possibility of it being inapplicable in individual cases cannot be ruled out. We therefore regret that we cannot accept responsibility or liability of any kind whatsoever for the correctness of the information given. Please notify us if you discover that information is inapplicable. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [email protected] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [email protected]
