Hi Joey, On Tue, May 10, 2005 at 01:14:25PM -0400, Joey Hess wrote: > There's nothing stopping you from including an example value in the > template. Don't present it as the default value.
I don't like this but I won't argue it. It does not matter that much,
it's easy to remove the remark.
> > By whom? As I am the maintainer of slapd I expect nobody else to change
> > that default.
>
> Preseeding? Derived distributions?
Preseeding: Okay, we are talking about different "default" values here.
I am talking about the value suggested by the maintainer you are talking
about the previous value. From debconf-devel(7):
RESET question
This resets the question to its default value (as is specified
in the 'Default' field of its template).
So I'd expect the "default value" to mean the value from the Default field.
Derived distributions: The Default: entry of that question is just 7
lines apart from the explanation which mentions it. I'd say it's not
that hard to change both when you create a derived package.
> > frontend is changed to at least present the user the current/default
> > value if the libterm-readline-gnu-perl package is not installed. And
> > make it very clear that hitting return means submitting an empty value.
>
> It does. It prompts as follows:
>
> Directory to dump databases: _
a) It does neither present the default nor the current value.
b) It is /not/ clear that hitting enter means the empty value. With
alone this information (the above one line) that's what I would have
expected. But I was used to debconf using the default value when hitting
enter even with the readline interface.
> Barring some note that tells them there is a default, noone would expect
> hitting enter to result in some default value here[1]. The convention is
I can proof the opposite by counterexample: I would expect it. Not on
the grounds of that output but by using debconf with readline frontend
before and just hitting enter when I did not care about a particular
setting.
> Or this:
>
> Directory to dump databases: /var/backups/slapd-VERSION_
Yep, I was used that from older versions of the debconf readline
interface. As a matter of fact I seldom read the full description of and
option and decide by reading 3-4 lines that the default will be okay and
hit enter.
> > Perhaps it's even better (for compatibility with the readline-installed
> > case) to ask the user to explicitly input "" for the empty value.
>
> And then users need to learn a complicated set of rules for the edge
> cae where they want to enter a literal pair of double quotes. No thanks.
It was just a suggestion.
> Why? Validating user input is the correct thing to do in all cases
> anyway.
How do you validate if some input can be used as a directory name?
Almost any input is acceptable there (except the empty string against
which I am checking against now).
Greetings
Torsten
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