[Dctrl-tools-devel] Bug#525525: do not separate stanzas with empty lines when showing Description field only

[Stefano Zacchiroli]

Package: dctrl-tools
Version: 2.14
Severity: normal

Hi, I was used to see the output of the various grep-dctrl tools as
stanzas separated by empty lines. That makes such output RFC822
compliant and parseable with related tools, including python-debian.

However, I noticed that if I specify as output field only
"Description", the empty lines separating output stanzas are not
there. Quick examples to show the problem:
  
This is OK:

  $ grep-available -s Description,Enhances ''
  Description: create device mappings for partitions
   Kpartx can be used to set up device mappings for the partitions of any
   partitioned block device. It is part of the Linux multipath-tools.
  
  Description: A Comprehensive English Dictionary
   This package contains the GNU version of the Collaborative
   <snip>
   dictd package, or another RFC 2229 compliant server.
  
  Description: tool for building TAGS files from O'Caml sources
   otags is a tool for building "TAGS" files for emacs and vi.  TAGS
   files provide the editor with an index table, mapping important

Note that I've chosen Enhances to show that it does not matter whether
the field actually appears in the matched stanza, what it matters is
to have it as part of "-s".

The following on the contrary is not OK:

  $ grep-available -s Description ''
  Description: create device mappings for partitions
   Kpartx can be used to set up device mappings for the partitions of any
   partitioned block device. It is part of the Linux multipath-tools.
  Description: A Comprehensive English Dictionary
   This package contains the GNU version of the Collaborative
   <snip>
   dictionary server in the dictd package.  The GCIDE contains the
  Description: tool for building TAGS files from O'Caml sources
   otags is a tool for building "TAGS" files for emacs and vi.  TAGS
   files provide the editor with an index table, mapping important

The problem is reproducible with the various grep-* tools. I've found
no other fields acting as Description, so my best guess is that the
bug relies somewhere in the code handling multi-line fields.

Many thanks in advance
Cheers

-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.29-1-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages dctrl-tools depends on:
ii  libc6                         2.9-7      GNU C Library: Shared libraries

dctrl-tools recommends no packages.

Versions of packages dctrl-tools suggests:
ii  apt                           0.7.20.2   Advanced front-end for dpkg
ii  debtags                       1.7.9      Enables support for package tags

-- no debconf information