Bug#999751: di-netboot-assistant: please drop shellcheck autopkgtest

[Samuel Henrique]

Source: di-netboot-assistant
Version: 0.71
Severity: serious
X-Debbugs-CC: debian-ci at lists.debian.org, shellcheck at packages.debian.org
Tags: sid bookworm
User: debian-ci at lists.debian.org
Usertags: needs-update
Control: affects -1 src:shellcheck

Dear maintainer(s),

With a recent upload of shellcheck the autopkgtest of di-netboot-assistant
fails in testing when that autopkgtest is run with the binary packages
of shellcheck from unstable. It passes when run with only packages from
testing. In tabular form:

                       pass            fail
shellcheck             from testing    0.8.0-2
di-netboot-assistant        from testing    0.71
all others             from testing    from testing

I copied some of the output at the bottom of this report.

Currently this regression is blocking the migration of shellcheck to
testing [1]. Of course, shellcheck shouldn't just break your autopkgtest
(or even worse, your package), but in this case shellcheck just evolved.
Static analysis tools are intended to run on source code, while
autopkgtest is intended to run against installed packages, where source
code is in principle not relevant; we want to know whether the binary
packages, as provided in the Debian archive, work correctly. In our
opinion running this type of tools as integration tests in autopkgtest,
or even as build-time tests is Wrong™, and should not be done. (Having
them run in salsaci or equivalent is of course totally great.)

More information about this bug and the reason for filing it can be found on
https://wiki.debian.org/ContinuousIntegration/RegressionEmailInformation

[1] https://qa.debian.org/excuses.php?package=shellcheck

https://ci.debian.net/data/autopkgtest/testing/amd64/d/di-netboot-assistant/16684224/log.gz

autopkgtest [03:27:30]: test command1: shellcheck -x
/usr/bin/di-netboot-assistant ;       shellcheck -x -s dash
/var/lib/dpkg/info/di-netboot-assistant.post*
/var/lib/dpkg/info/di-netboot-assistant.pre*
autopkgtest [03:27:30]: test command1: [-----------------------

In /usr/bin/di-netboot-assistant line 452:
        echo -e "MENU BACKGROUND ::${s#$TFTP_ROOT}\n" >> pxelinux.cfg/default
                                       ^--------^ SC2295 (info):
Expansions inside ${..} need to be quoted separately, otherwise they
match as patterns.

Did you mean:
        echo -e "MENU BACKGROUND ::${s#"$TFTP_ROOT"}\n" >> pxelinux.cfg/default

For more information:
  https://www.shellcheck.net/wiki/SC2295 -- Expansions inside ${..} need to b...
autopkgtest [03:27:32]: test command1: -----------------------]
autopkgtest [03:27:32]: test command1:  - - - - - - - - - - results -
- - - - - - - - -
command1             FAIL non-zero exit status 1

I took the liberty to base the body of this email on bugreport
#992798, from Paul Gevers,

-- 
Samuel Henrique <samueloph>