clone 525782 -1 reassign -1 dpkg-dev retitle -1 dpkg-gensymbols should strip #MISSING lines in symbols files in .deb thanks
On Mon, 27 Apr 2009, Paul Wise wrote: > Please warn about symbols files containing #MISSING: ... It's not clear to me that they have to be stripped. They represent useful information for the maintainer about the history of the library. I tend to agree that they are useless in the symbols files inside the .deb (and hence in /var/lib/dpkg/info/) but I would not force them to be stripped inside the source package. dpkg-gensymbols should strip them by default when generating an updated symbols file (but still show them that way in the diff). Hence the clone. (It should still have an option to keep them at least for the mole worker that generates initial symbols files) See also in #521551 how the format might evolve to contain more meta-information about symbols and how using those comments was suggested. Note that those lines might also come from the symbol files that they grabbed on qa.debian.org/cgi-bin/mole.cgi and not necessarily from their own patching. > These lines indicate some symbols have disappeared in newer versions of > a library. The removed symbols might have been private symbols that have > been hidden or they were public symbols that have been removed. Private > symbols should be removed from the symbols file. Removed symbols means > an ABI breakage and that version should not be packaged without > reintroducing the symbols or bumping the SONAME/etc. Another alternative > is that the symbols were introduced in a release candidate and removed > in the final release, I guess the symbols should be removed. Normally > when a symbol disappears the package will FTBFS with a message like the > below. Some people seem to just patch their symbols file with the lines > containing #MISSING instead of dealing with the issue properly and > hopefully a lintian warning would discourage that practice. The problem is that you can't know automatically if you are in a case where the symbols can safely be removed (private one, devel version with unstable API, etc) or if you should shout at the maintainer. I'm not sure that lintian can diagnose anything here. Cheers, -- Raphaël Hertzog Contribuez à Debian et gagnez un cahier de l'admin Debian Lenny : http://www.ouaza.com/wp/2009/03/02/contribuer-a-debian-gagner-un-livre/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org