[Reportbug-maint] Bug#759024: Must report incorrect config file entries

[Eduard Bloch]

reopen 759024
thanks

Hallo,
* Sandro Tosi [Thu, Nov 06 2014, 12:03:40PM]:

> On Sat, Aug 23, 2014 at 10:22 PM, Eduard Bloch <blade at debian.org> wrote:
> >    * What led up to the situation?
> >
> > I tried to setup reportbug.d.o as SMTP host after reading
> > README.Users.gz
> >
> >    * What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or
> >      ineffective)?
> >
> > I added
> > smtphost=reportbug.debian.org
> > to $HOME/.reportbugrc and started using reportbug.
> >
> >    * What was the outcome of this action?
> >
> > reportbug started without complaining (or at least I did not notice)
> >
> >    * What outcome did you expect instead?
> >
> > Immediate abortion and a clearly visible message telling that the format
> > of that line is wrong and the user should better RTFM reportbug.conf(5).
> 
> $ grep smtphost ~/.reportbugrc
> smtphost=reportbug.debian.org

Now please try with

cp ~/.reportbugrc ~/.reportbugrc.backup
echo smtphost=reportbug.debian.org > ~/.reportbugrc.backup

Getting the point?

> $ grep testconf ~/.reportbugrc
> testconf dummy
> $ reportbug -O python2.7 ~ head -n1
> Unrecognized token: testconf
> Unrecognized token: dummy
> 
> Reportbug policy is to ignore configuration it doesnt understand.

Which is an utterly bad idea, you let the user enter the nice report and
then this information gets lost. Is this seriously your intention?

You don't have to abort... just show a warning.

> from man reportbug.conf you can find the FILE FORMAT section
> explaining how to write a proper config file.

Why? README.Users.gz tells me to add lines like this right in the
beginning and the program seems to accept it.

Regards,
Eduard.