On Sun, 19 Apr 2020 23:12:28 +0200 Guillem Jover <guil...@debian.org> wrote: > On Sun, 2020-04-19 at 13:45:17 -0700, Josh Triplett wrote: > > Package: dpkg-dev > > Version: 1.19.7 > > Severity: normal > > File: /usr/share/man/man5/deb-control.5.gz > > > The deb-control manpage seemed like the right place to look to find out > > if Debian control files can have trailing commas in comma-separated > > fields (such as Depends). However, it didn't mention whether this was > > allowed. > > That man pages documents the control file for binary packages.
Ah. > > (I'm hoping that it is, as that would improve the quality of diffs.) > > This got documented in deb-src-control(5) in 1.19.0, I think at a > similar time when this got requested to be clarified in debian-policy. > > > <https://git.dpkg.org/cgit/dpkg/dpkg.git/commit/?id=05bbea38469409fd718e44cb550fabd2f1b073f5> That helps, thank you. > I'm wondering what gave this false lead? I looked for documentation on the file named debian/control, and I remembered that dpkg uses the deb- abbreviation for many things, so I guessed `man deb-control` and found a manpage. Would you consider adding a note at the top of deb-control stating something like "Debian source packages support additional features in control files, which get eliminated when translating into the more restrictive format for binary packages described here. For the control format in source packages, see deb-src-control." > (I have a pending and unfinished branch somewhere to move all the > dependency syntax into its own man page, perhaps that would have > helper here?) Possibly. - Josh Triplett
