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 11:05:09AM +0200, Andreas Metzler wrote:
>> On 2006-10-14 Marc Haber <mh+debian-packages at zugschlus.de> wrote:
>>> 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.
[...] 
>> 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.

> Consistency.

> To spare people from doubling the colons in IP address lists, exim now
> allows selection of other separator characters. The semicolon as
> separator for IP address lists was introduced a few months ago. I
> think it is a good idea to be consistent here and to have all lists
> semicolon separated now.

I just disagree that this is important enough to break working setups.
In hindsight ";" was a bad choice as new default. :-(

> The change would screw advanced uses who would know to look in
> NEWS.Debian and find the explanation.

> I'd prefer screwing advanced users over confusing newbies. The former
> can cope, the latter will produce hard-to-debug issues.

I used to be able to simply extend the Debian setup, now I would
suddenly have to actively work around it by using some dummy value in
update-exim4.conf.conf and setting a MAIN_LOCAL_DOMAINS manually.

cu andreas
-- 
The 'Galactic Cleaning' policy undertaken by Emperor Zhark is a personal
vision of the emperor's, and its inclusion in this work does not constitute
tacit approval by the author or the publisher for any such projects,
howsoever undertaken.                                (c) Jasper Ffforde