[Build-common-hackers] Bug#772129: dpkg-build: silently ignores lines it does not understand

[Guillem Jover]

Control: clone -1 -2
Control: reassign -1 debhelper
Control: retitle -1 debhelper: Does not support case-insensitve field names
Control: reassign -2 cdbs
Control: retitle -2 cdbs: Does not support case-insensitve field names

I guess this could be considered of serious severity as a policy
violation (§5.1), but I'll let the affected maintainers decide.

On Sat, 2014-12-06 at 21:15:29 +0100, folkert wrote:
> > > Package: dpkg-build
> > > Version: any
> > > Severity: important

> > > For example debian/control with:
> > > 
> > > package: bla
> > > 
> > > This is silently ignored. You just don't find any resulting package.
> > 
> > I fear you'll have to provide way more information, as it stands this
> > bug report is not very actionable.
> > 
> > What's the contents of the packaging, at least the entire debian/control
> > and debian/rules files, how do you create the package, or what error
> > are you getting, etc.

> The problem is as follows:
> debian/control
> --------------
> package: my-package
> architecture: all
> section: web
> depends: php5
> description: bla
>  bla bla
> 
> The package builder will now ignore this section (note the lowercase
> first character for each command!) without any warnings.

This was unfortunately still not enough information, but I managed non
the less to intuit this is due to a problem in a helper tool, but not
sure which one you are using, but certainly not a problem in dpkg-dev.
It seems at least both debhelper and cdbs are affected, if you are
using something else, please do tell.

At least Debian::Debhelper::Dh_Lib, /usr/share/cdbs/1/rules/buildcore.mk,
/usr/share/cdbs/1/rules/buildvars.mk and /usr/lib/cdbs/list-packages
do parse control files but do not handle the field names in a
case-insensitive way. There might be other instances on those packages.

Thanks,
Guillem