Re: Rationale behind script-not-executable lintian warning

[Andrew Vaughan <ajv-lists@netspace.net.au>]

On Sat, 24 Dec 2005 00:59, Frank Küster wrote:
> "cobaco (aka Bart Cornelis)" <cobaco@linux.be> wrote:
> >
> > shebang line does _not_ indicate executability, it's the magic number
> > that indicates it's a script instead of machine code (see e.g
> > http://foldoc.org/?shebang)
> >
> > if it's meant to be executable it should have the executable bit set,
> > this is unrelated from the shebang line (if not what do you do with a
> > script that's executable for the owner but not for anyone else?
> > automatically remove the shebang depending on who opens it?)
>
> You are right, but this makes me doubt even more whether having a
> non-executable file with a shebang line is a bug, because this
> information is also interesting for human beings.
>
> Regards, Frank
The lintian warning is a warning.  (IMO) it's not saying the the packaging 
is buggy, just warning that it _might_ be buggy.  

It catches cases where the maintainer has accidentally packaged a script 
which is supposed to be executable, without actually making the script 
executable.  Where this is a deliberate decision, an override is 
appropriate.

HTH 
Andrew V.


It alerts the maintainer to the case where an executable script is 
accidentally not executable.  


catches the Probably most of the scripts with shebang lines hipped by



Most of the