Bug#802718: lintian: Blank lines in a vendor profile cause errors for valid lines

[Niels Thykier <niels@thykier.net>]

Control: forcemerge -1 802720
Control: tags -1 moreinfo

DJ Stauffer:
> Package: lintian
> Version: 2.5.30+deb8u4
> Severity: normal
> 
> Dear Maintainer,
> 
>   I created a vendor profile named main.profile with the following lines:
> 
>[...]
> 
> If I remove the single blank line from the main.profile file, and run
> the lintian
> command again, the command succeeds.
> 

Yes, this is intentional behaviour.  The profile must satisfy the format
of the "deb822" format.

> The vendor profile example given in section 2.5.2.3 of the lintian
> documentation has a blank line in it.

The crucial part is /where/ the blank line is, or rather, which fields
are in what part of the file.  A deb822 file consists of one or more
"paragraphs", which are separated by empty lines.
  The example in 2.5.2.3 has "Extends" and "Disable-Tags" in the "first
paragraph" ("Main profile paragraph").  The example you provided that
fails have them in the "second paragraph" (a "Tag alteration paragraph").


>  Also given that the man page for lintian says the
>  --tags-from-file and --suppress-tags-from-file options both ignore blank
> lines, I was expecting vendor profiles to do the same.
> 
> [...]

Sorry for the confusion, but the profile file is (and have always been)
an entirely different format.

Thanks,
~Niels