Debian Bug report logs - #247974
unintuitive error message for free-form text input

Reply or subscribe to this bug.

Display info messages

Message #5 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: JusTiCe8 <[email protected]>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <[email protected]>

Cc: Fabio Rafael da Rosa <[email protected]>

Subject: equivs-build produces understandable error message

Date: Sat, 08 May 2004 14:02:20 +0200

Package: equivs
Version: 2.0.4
Severity: wishlist

I use equivs-build in order to try to make a dummy package to satisfy
dependencies and I made a litle mystake in description field by forgot
to put a space in front on each line and

equivs-build package

say :

syntax error in control file: libpng is a library implementing an
interface for reading and writing at /usr/bin/equivs-build line 253,
<IN> line 36.

It's better to give the correct error message to give a clue on how to
correct bad field.

-- System Information
Debian Release: 3.0
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux HallOfJustice 2.4.19 #1 lun avr 19 09:50:35 CEST 2004 i686
Locale: LANG=fr_FR@euro, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR@euro

Versions of packages equivs depends on:
ii  debhelper               4.0.2.openoffice helper programs for 
debian/rules
ii  devscripts              2.7.0            Scripts to make the life of 
a Debi
ii  dpkg-dev                1.9.21           Package building tools for 
Debian
ii  fakeroot                0.4.4-9.2        Gives a fake root environment.
ii  make                    3.79.1-14        The GNU version of the 
"make" util
ii  perl                    5.6.1-8.7        Larry Wall's Practical 
Extraction
ii  perl [perl5]            5.6.1-8.7        Larry Wall's Practical 
Extraction

Message #12 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: era eriksson <[email protected]>

To: [email protected]

Cc: [email protected]

Subject: fix bug description

Date: Fri, 8 Aug 2008 13:59:21 +0300 (EEST)

retitle 247974 unintuitive error message for free-form text input
thanks

As shown below, the error message is even marginally less useful now,
because the input file and line number are no longer indicated.

Error handling aside, maybe the instructions in template.ctl could be
even more explicit about the required format for continued text fields.

Possibly a crude syntax checker for the control file could be devised;
that should certainly handle all of #219188, #251673, and #247974.

vnix$ cat 247974
Package: libpng
Provides: stuff
Description: test case for #247974
libpng is a library implementing an interface for reading and writing

vnix$ equivs-build 247974.ctl
syntax error in control file: libpng is a library implementing an interface for reading and writing

Send a report that this bug log contains spam.