On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 04:54:13PM +0200, Stefano Zacchiroli wrote: > I'm not sure whether dctrl is standardized anywhere.
I'm sure - it isn't. > I've just checked policy which contains (§5.1) something called > "control files", definition that applies to the various stanzas of > debian/control. That syntax prescribes an empty line. However, what > you are grepping through are files handled by APT and dpkg which I > believe fall outside the scope of policy in that respect. Outside scope yes, but it is a useful starting point. > As usual, it depends on how many people are relying on that. An > argument that I'd like to put forward is the following: > > - the proposed change affect the output only when a single multiline > field is selected; the current output in that case does not have > blank lines as separated > > - hence, people relying on that output are already detecting, as > postmark of a new stanza, a non-indented ^Description (or its > equivalent) > > - assuming that the new behavior is to output an empty line in that > case (assumption that needs to be validated), the detection of new > stanza will not break > > The only "breakage" would be that people relying on the old behavior > will get an extra empty line as part of their Descriptions. The > breakage (if any, given that current multiline fields would need to be > joined to be useful) looks like very minor to me. > > Does this argument look convincing? Mostly okay, except you're focusing too much on Description. But I don't think that changes it much. -- Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, Jyväskylä, Finland http://antti-juhani.kaijanaho.fi/newblog/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/antti-juhani/
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