[Secure-testing-team] [patch 0/3] Syntax tweaks for data/CAN/list

[Florian Weimer]

* Micah Anderson:

> Now that the list is getting cleaned up, we need to work on ways to keep it
> from getting messy again, an emacs minor mode would be nice,

I doubt that all these little issues can be checked in an Emacs mode.
Not everything is a regular expression, and the cross-database checks
are totally out of question.

> but maybe the restrictive parser can act as our sort of lintian to
> run over the list before submission.

It's also possible to run the parser on costa, before the check-in is
approved.  But this might be too drastic.

> Additionally, as we get more people helping, I think improving our
> documentation would also help significantly for people getting up to speed
> (except in the case of typos, or synaptic misfires of course).

For the list files, I plan to add a free-form header which is skipped
by the parser, so that we can explain the syntax in the file.

There's a piece of syntax I don't understand.  What's the difference
between

        - mysql-dfsg 4.0.18-4

and

        ! mysql-dfsg 4.0.18-6

?  Is the "!" of any special significance?