Package: dpkg-dev Version: 1.19.0.5+b1 Severity: wishlist [ My gut feeling tells me I've reported this before - but I couldn't find it ]
Dear Maintainer,
dpkg-gencontrol might emit two warnings that look quite similar but
have a rather different meaning:
| dpkg-gencontrol: warning: Depends field of package <package>: unknown
substitution variable ${<var>}
| dpkg-gencontrol: warning: package <package>: unused substitution variable
${<var>}
Even after several years of encountering these (and fixing, of course),
I still get confused. Especially if only one of the both messages
appear, it's likely to get the meaning of "unknown" and "unused" the
wrong way.
So I'm asking to reword these, and - more important - to include a
suggestion for the maintainer, like the following:
| dpkg-gencontrol: warning: Variable ${<var>} was not listed in debian/control
for package <package> but is used - consider adding it
| dpkg-gencontrol: warning: Variable ${<var>} was listed in debian/control for
package <package> but is not used - consider removing it
Yes, these messages are longer than the current ones. But I think it's
worth it.
Christoph
-- System Information:
Debian Release: buster/sid
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Kernel: Linux 4.14.56 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8),
LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: unable to detect
Versions of packages dpkg-dev depends on:
ii binutils 2.31-1
ii bzip2 1.0.6-8.1
ii libdpkg-perl 1.19.0.5+b1
ii make 4.2.1-1.1
ii patch 2.7.6-2
ii perl 5.26.2-6
ii tar 1.30+dfsg-2
ii xz-utils 5.2.2-1.3
Versions of packages dpkg-dev recommends:
ii build-essential 12.5
ii fakeroot 1.23-1
ii gcc [c-compiler] 4:7.3.0-3
ii gcc-7 [c-compiler] 7.3.0-26
ii gnupg 2.2.8-3
ii gpgv 2.2.8-3
pn libalgorithm-merge-perl <none>
Versions of packages dpkg-dev suggests:
ii debian-keyring 2018.06.24
-- no debconf information
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