Bug#801647: lintian: Warn on whitespace around name in changelog
Package: lintian
Version: 2.5.38
Severity: wishlist
debian/changelog is a partly automatically generated file, partly manually
edited.
I probably did something wrong to even notice this edge case, but still.
Given a debian/changelog that ends with, for example:
"""
-- Hugues Morisset <morisset.hugues@gmail.com> Fri, 02 Oct 2015 14:13:47
+0100
"""
And given a debian/control that contains, among others:
"""
Maintainer: Hugues Morisset <morisset.hugues@gmail.com>
"""
Then lintian complains (correctly!) about the current version being a NMU,
i.e., changelog-should-mention-nmu and source-nmu-has-incorrect-version-number.
For a Debian newbie, this is very confusing.
To make it easier to resolve issues like this, I would like to "wish" for an
*additional* warning message like this:
"""
The most recent changelog entry is from " Hugues Morisset
<morisset.hugues@gmail.com>". The control file lists "Hugues Morisset
<morisset.hugues@gmail.com>" as a maintainer. These count as different people
only due to differing whitespace, even though the address is identical. If this
dissociation is unintended, please correct the whitespace issue in the
changelog.
"""
I'm horrible at designing warning messages, but I hope I could explain why,
what, and how this is happening; and why it's pretty unintuitive.
As indicated in the fictive warning message, I would suggest checking the "raw"
email address of the changelog against the "raw" email address of each
maintainer and uploader. If the address matches but the name doesn't, then the
packager most definitely did not intend this.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: stretch/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (500, 'testing'), (500, 'oldstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386
Kernel: Linux 4.2.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=de_DE.utf8, LC_CTYPE=de_DE.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
Versions of packages lintian depends on:
ii binutils 2.25.1-3
ii bzip2 1.0.6-8
ii diffstat 1.60-1
ii file 1:5.25-2
ii gettext 0.19.6-1
ii hardening-includes 2.7
ii intltool-debian 0.35.0+20060710.4
ii libapt-pkg-perl 0.1.29+b3
ii libarchive-zip-perl 1.53-1
ii libclass-accessor-perl 0.34-1
ii libclone-perl 0.38-1
ii libdpkg-perl 1.18.3
ii libemail-valid-perl 1.196-1
ii libfile-basedir-perl 0.07-1
ii libipc-run-perl 0.94-1
ii liblist-moreutils-perl 0.413-1
ii libparse-debianchangelog-perl 1.2.0-8
ii libtext-levenshtein-perl 0.13-1
ii libtimedate-perl 2.3000-2
ii liburi-perl 1.69-1
ii man-db 2.7.3-1
ii patchutils 0.3.4-1
ii perl [libdigest-sha-perl] 5.20.2-6
ii t1utils 1.38-4
ii xz-utils 5.1.1alpha+20120614-2.1
Versions of packages lintian recommends:
ii dpkg 1.18.3
pn libperlio-gzip-perl <none>
ii perl 5.20.2-6
ii perl-modules [libautodie-perl] 5.20.2-6
Versions of packages lintian suggests:
ii binutils-multiarch 2.25.1-3
ii dpkg-dev 1.18.3
ii libhtml-parser-perl 3.71-2
ii libtext-template-perl 1.46-1
pn libyaml-perl <none>
-- no debconf information
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