Bug#1026976: Upcoming test suite regression due to changes in file/libmagic

[Christoph Biedl]

Chris Lamb wrote...

> Thanks again for the "new version of file in experimental" bugs; very
> much appreciated.

You're welcome. Given file's volatility, I guess this will not be the
last conversation in that regard ...

> > - a /usr/bin/python3 script executable (binary data)
> > + Zip archive, with extra data prepended
> >
> > Now that looks a bit delicate ... if you think this is something that
> > should be handled in file/libmagic, let me know.
>
> Naturally, as one of the maintainers of strip-nondeterminism, I am
> inclined to believe that this is a minor regression in file. :)

This indeed was the rare where I think a change in file(1), while done
with best intentions, caused more harm than benefit.

> However, this "extra data prepended" doesn't fit well under the rubric
> of "data". Yes, this "#!/usr/bin/python3\n" shebang is definitely
> "data" of a kind, but a shebang isn't really data in that way given
> the special-treatment afforded to it by UNIX systems. Even if this
> noun was replaced by the more general "bytes", the magic nature of the
> shebang would still remain… as would the desire to discriminate
> between pyzip files and other ZIP files with prepended data.
>
> Could another — different — string be emitted in the case that these
> prepended bytes are a shebang? We could potentially look for the file
> starting with #! and for that to take precedence over this new case.

After some more thinking: I suggest you do nothing for the time being
while I take this to upstream. If all else fails, I'll revert the change
for the next upload. By the way, that will be 1:5.44-1, but the changes
to 1:5.43-3 are minimal.

    Christoph
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