[buildd-tools-devel] Bug#626221: Bug#626221: confusing warning: Unknown key ‘union-type’ used

[Roger Leigh]

On Tue, May 10, 2011 at 07:18:09PM +1000, Brian May wrote:
> On 10 May 2011 18:39, Roger Leigh <rleigh at codelibre.net> wrote:
> 
> > The problem is, from the POV of the keyfile parser, it really *is*
> > unknown: the chroot object reads all the keys it knows about, and
> > anything left over is unknown.  chroots not supporting unions don't
> > posess the union "facet" which provides the unioning functionality,
> > and so they simply are unable to process that key.  The chroot
> > objects are (internally) extensible via the addition of "facets",
> > each of which can process arbitrary keys; in consequence it's not
> > possible to know at the time of the error that an "unknown" key is
> > valid in other contexts.
> >
> 
> In that case, maybe just improvements to the man page. i.e.
> 
> 1. List which types support unions. Or list which types don't support
> unions.
> 
> 2. Also mention that the default type is 'plain'. I see a reference that
> says 'directory' is recommended but unfortunately it fails to mention that
> the default is 'plain'.
> 
> If the documentation was acceptable on this point, I would have been less
> confused.
> 
> Also maybe the wording of the message could be improved. e.g.
> 
> Unknown key ‘union-type’ used for type 'plain'
> 
> Just to emphasis that the the type may be relevant to the error.

These are all good suggestions, and I'll be happy to update the error
message and documentation.  I'll definitely document what the default
type is--that's a glaring omission.  Each chroot type supporting unions
does document this, but not the other way around; I'll fix that as well.

I did want to change the default to "directory" rather than "plain"
because it's more generally usable and what most people would want to
be using by default.  However, there was an issue with the behaviour
altering for existing users who failed to set the type= key; I'm not
averse to making the change for wheezy+1 so long as it's clearly
documented in the release notes for schroot 1.6.x.


Regards,
Roger

-- 
  .''`.  Roger Leigh
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