On 27/08/2025 21:24, Otto Kekäläinen wrote:
Yes. Otherwise, with wildcards in play, it would not be possible to determine
which license applies to which file.
The syntax definition
https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/#files-field
states;
"Multiple Files stanzas are allowed.
The last stanza that matches a particular file applies to it.
More general stanzas should therefore be given first,
followed by more specific overrides."
Do we have any tool that would reformat the debian/copyright file
automatically? Like wrap-and-sort is for debian/control but for
debian/control? If people would run such a tool it could help
eliminate incorrect syntax/ordering issues.
I don't know of any, and I have never seen this issue before.
Most maintainers working on copyright files know to put the
wildard stanzas first.
In the example above the difference is drastic as I moved the full
wildcard from the beginning to the end, but subtle ordering issues of
various subdirectories may be hard to detect. Maybe lrc could provide
some automation in this situation?
Hi Otto,
I've no plans to take lrc beyond read only checking.
However, cme may help you with this.
https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cme
As in
'cme update dpkg-copyright'
Regards,
Peter
