Bug#392831: exim4-config: colons or semi colons as separators (debconf templates issue)

[Andreas Metzler]

On 2006-10-14 Marc Haber <mh+debian-packages at zugschlus.de> wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 14, 2006 at 10:37:26AM +0200, Andreas Metzler wrote:
> > On 2006-10-14 Marc Haber <mh+debian-packages at zugschlus.de> wrote:
> > > On Sat, Oct 14, 2006 at 10:09:42AM +0200, Andreas Metzler wrote:
> > > > Domain *names* cannot, exim domain *lists* can.
> > > > dc_other_hostnames='dsearch; CONFDIR/vdom:m26s25.vlinux.de'
> > 
> > > That never worked since we are prepending "@:localhost:"
> > [...]
> > 
> > @:localhost: dsearch; CONFDIR/vdom:m26s25.vlinux.de
> > is a valid domainlist, containing four items:
> > @
> > localhost
> > dsearch; CONFDIR/vdom
> > m26s25.vlinux.de

> That works? Ouch!

Hello,
why the ouch? It is a simple colon-delimited list without any funky
characters. ;-)

> Will "localhost:@:<;foo;bar;baz" work as well? Probably not, right?

No, that is invalid syntax.

ametzler at argenau:/tmp$ cat tesme
domainlist xxx = localhost:@:<;foo;bar;baz
ametzler at argenau:/tmp$ /usr/sbin/exim4 -C tesme \
        -be '${if match_domain{baz}{+xxx}{yes}{no}}'
2006-10-14 10:56:06 unknown lookup type "<"

> I am currently inclined to remove the possibility of using constructs
> that complex via debconf, documenting that only plain lists, semicolon
> separated, are allowed and that people wanting to do more complex
> things via Exim macros.

> What do you think?

I would prefer if things continued to work. afaict this has worked
since 2002 and I currently fail to see a compelling reason to remove
it.

There might be compelling reasons the at some point in the future,
e.g. if retaining this feature would block implementation of a more
important feature.

My personal opinion might be biased though, I am used to the whole
thing.
cu andreas
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