[Debconf-devel] Bug#747945: debconf.conf(5) is misleading as to the default value of Extension for PackageDir

[Steven McDonald]

Package: debconf
Version: 1.5.53
Severity: normal

Hi there,

The debconf.conf(5) man page says of the PackageDir driver:

  This driver is configurable in the same ways as is the DirTree
  driver, plus ...

and of the DirTree driver's Extension setting:

  Must be set to a non-empty string; defaults to ".dat"

This is correct for the DirTree driver; however,
Debconf/DbDriver/PackageDir.pm has both perldoc and code in agreement
that the default value for Extension for PackageDir is "".

This seems most likely to be a bug in the man page, but I'm not certain
of that, mostly because changing Debconf::DbDriver::Directory to
default extension to ".dat" would make the PackageDir and DirTree
drivers more consistent with each other.

I am attaching a patch which updates the man page to more completely
describe the behaviour of the code.

Thanks,
Steven.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: jessie/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (800, 'unstable'), (700, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 3.14-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_AU.utf8, LC_CTYPE=en_AU.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages debconf depends on:
ii  perl-base  5.18.2-3

Versions of packages debconf recommends:
ii  apt-utils     1.0.3
ii  debconf-i18n  1.5.53

Versions of packages debconf suggests:
ii  debconf-doc                1.5.53
ii  debconf-utils              1.5.53
ii  dialog                     1.2-20140219-1
pn  libgtk2-perl               <none>
ii  libnet-ldap-perl           1:0.6200+dfsg-1
ii  libqtcore4-perl            4.8.4-1+b1
ii  libqtgui4-perl             4.8.4-1+b1
pn  libterm-readline-gnu-perl  <none>
ii  perl                       5.18.2-3
ii  whiptail                   0.52.15-3+b1

-- debconf information excluded
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