# Being honest here. See below for work arounds
# and solutions
tags 1128017 wontfix
retitle 1128017 debhelper: config files are always split
thanks
Jonas Smedegaard:
configuration files via `filearray` and `filedoublearray` that I do not
expect to be fixed.
To be honest, I am a bit surprised that any spaces survived and the code
splits on all white spaces (it uses the `split` function from Perl with
no arguments).
I can offer the following work around/solutions:
* Using a substitution variable such as ${Space} and ${Tab}. These are
expanded after the `split` and therefore do not count as separators.
Assumes compat 13+. Relevant docs are in `man 7 debhelper` though, it
should literally just `s/ /${Space}/` for the spaces you want to
keep.
It is one of the reasons the substitution feature was added and
applied after the split (and before the glob). It is the "official
solution" (read work around).
* Using an executable `debian/pkg.docs`, since debhelper does not split
the output (nor glob) the output of those. It is a pain, since you
have to provide your own glob plus never emit comments, etc. On the
"plus" side it works since compat 9. Still, I do not recommend it,
because it will be a pain to maintain.
* Given the simplicity of the package involved, you should be able to
migrate it to `debputy`, which does not have this issue[1]. It is
an entirely different packaging stack, and I do not know whether it
is fits your style.
- I ended up writing a patch for it, because the instructions would
be incomplete. I have no expectations that you consider this patch.
I wrote it because if you happened to find it interesting, I wanted
the transition to be a smooth process and my tooling was not
adequate at time of writing.
PS: While testing my own instructions, I noted that `debputy lint` flags
the `Comments` fields in `debian/copyright` as being a typo of
`Comment`. This is based on the official documentation
(https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/#comment-field)
uses `Comment` (without an `s`) as well with no reference to `Comments`
being an alias. In fact `Comments` are not used at all in that page.
I hope this response was useful.
Best regards,
Niels
[1]: The full part is in the attached patch. It is based on the following:
root$ apt install debputy debputy-lsp # unstable or stable-backports
$ cd path/to/icc-profiles
$ debputy migrate-from-dh
--acceptable-migration-issues=min-compat-level,dh-hook-targets
--migration-target full
# Normally, fix up the manual bits. But I have attached a full patch
# because the migration code is still lacking for the `full` target.
$ git commit -a