[Debconf-devel] Bug#651642: debconf: process_command does not properly skip blank input lines.

[Joey Hess]

Bob Vincent wrote:
> This is related to bug reports #630772 and #637737
> 
> When purging old kernels from the command line, multiple "Use of uninitialized value $command" errors are displayed.  These errors are caused by the following code line:
> 
>       return 1 unless defined && ! /^\s*#/; # Skip blank lines, comments.
> 
> The code skips undefined input and comments, but the associated inline comment claims that the intent was to skip blank lines and comments.  I resolved the problem locally by making the following change:

It would help if those bug reports included DEBCONF_DEBUG=.
protocol dumps so we could see why blank lines were being sent to
debconf. It seems likely that the packages are doing something wrong to
screw up the protocol like this.

The protocol has no provision for either blank lines or comments; the
reason for the code above is unclear (it was introduced when the thing
was first written in 1999). Debconf seems to do the right thing
protocol-wise by responding with an error to both -- I've gotten rid of
the uninitialized value warning.

-- 
see shy jo
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