Hi! On Mon, 2016-04-18 at 15:11:38 +1000, Ben Finney wrote: > Package: debian-policy > Severity: minor > Control: tags -1 + patch
> The description of control file syntax in §5.1 references numerous > characters, some by number and some as simple display of the > character, and some as informal names. Some of these mentions are > confusing. > > The section also specifies that all control files are encoded as > UTF-8, so knowledge of Unicode is (IMO correctly) assumed of the > reader. > > This patch standardises the mention of characters in §5.1 to > explicitly give Unicode code point references and (where appropriate) > the literal character unambiguously quoted. Ah good idea, I've changed this locally in the deb822(5) man page from dpkg git, based on your patch, will appear in my next push. Attached the changes. Thanks, Guillem
From e80ec0774a3f95b31b18a4843d1ee10cae019031 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Guillem Jover <guil...@debian.org> Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2016 10:43:13 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] man: Clarify what characters constitute the syntax of deb822 syntax Based-on-a-patch-by: Ben Finney <b...@benfinney.id.au> --- man/deb822.5 | 38 +++++++++++++++++++++----------------- 1 file changed, 21 insertions(+), 17 deletions(-) diff --git a/man/deb822.5 b/man/deb822.5 index 1d2df4c..dde7384 100644 --- a/man/deb822.5 +++ b/man/deb822.5 @@ -31,8 +31,9 @@ files (\fBdpkg\fP's internal databases are in a similar format). A control file consists of one or more paragraphs of fields (the paragraphs are also sometimes referred to as stanzas). The paragraphs are separated by empty lines. -Parsers may accept lines consisting solely of spaces and tabs as paragraph -separators, but control files should use empty lines. +Parsers may accept lines consisting solely of U+0020 \fBSPACE\fP and +U+0009 \fBTAB\fP as paragraph separators, but control files should use +empty lines. Some control files allow only one paragraph; others allow several, in which case each paragraph usually refers to a different package. (For example, in source packages, the first paragraph refers to the source @@ -41,19 +42,21 @@ source.) The ordering of the paragraphs in control files is significant. Each paragraph consists of a series of data fields. -Each field consists of the field name followed by a colon and then the -data/value associated with that field. +Each field consists of the field name followed by a U+003A \(oq\fB:\fP\(cq, +and then the data/value associated with that field. The field name is composed of US-ASCII characters excluding control -characters, space, and colon (i.e., characters in the ranges 33-57 and -59-126, inclusive). -Field names must not begin with the comment character (\(oq\fB#\fP\(cq), -nor with the hyphen character (\(oq\fB\-\fP\(cq). +characters, space, and colon (i.e., characters in the ranges +U+0021 \(oq\fB!\fP\(cq through U+0039 \(oq\fB9\fP\(cq, and +U+003B \(oq\fB;\fP\(cq through U+007E \(oq\fB~\fP\(cq, inclusive). +Field names must not begin with the comment character +(U+0023 \(oq\fB#\fP\(cq), nor with the hyphen character +(U+002D \(oq\fB\-\fP\(cq). The field ends at the end of the line or at the end of the last continuation line (see below). -Horizontal whitespace (spaces and tabs) may occur immediately before or after -the value and is ignored there; it is conventional to put a single space after -the colon. +Horizontal whitespace (U+0020 \fBSPACE\fP and U+0009 \fBTAB\fP) may occur +immediately before or after the value and is ignored there; it is conventional +to put a single space after the colon. For example, a field might be: .RS .nf @@ -81,7 +84,7 @@ specify a different type. .B folded The value of a folded field is a logical line that may span several lines. The lines after the first are called continuation lines and must start with -a space or a tab. +a U+0020 \fBSPACE\fP or a U+0009 \fBTAB\fP. Whitespace, including any newlines, is not significant in the field values of folded fields. @@ -111,13 +114,14 @@ names using mixed case as shown below. Field values are case-sensitive unless the description of the field says otherwise. -Paragraph separators (empty lines) and lines consisting only of spaces and -tabs are not allowed within field values or between fields. +Paragraph separators (empty lines) and lines consisting only of +U+0020 \fBSPACE\fP and U+0009 \fBTAB\fP, are not allowed within field +values or between fields. Empty lines in field values are usually escaped by representing them by a -space followed by a dot. +U+0020 \fBSPACE\fP followed by a U+002E \(oq\fB.\fP\(cq. -Lines starting with \(oq\fB#\fP\(cq without any preceding whitespace are -comments lines that are only permitted in source package control files +Lines starting with U+0023 \(oq\fB#\fP\(cq, without any preceding whitespace +are comments lines that are only permitted in source package control files (\fIdebian/control\fP) and in \fBdeb\-origin\fP(5) files. These comment lines are ignored, even between two continuation lines. They do not end logical lines. -- 2.8.1
