Subject: Bug#4365: no section and priority in debian/tmp/DEBIAN/control

From: [email-masked] (Andreas Jellinghaus)
Date: Sun, 1 Sep 96 19:06 MET DST

Package: dpkg
Version: 1.3.12

dpkg-gencontrol creates no priority and section entries in
debian/tmp/DEBIAN/control, but theese fields are in debian/files.
is this ok or is this a bug ? 

example :
debian/control:
Maintainer: Andreas Jellinghaus <[email-masked]>
Section: text
Priority: optional
Standards-Version: 2.0.0.0

Package: mpage
Architecture: any
Section: text
Priority: optional
Depends: libc5
Suggests: gs
Description: print  multiple  pages  per  sheet on PostScript printer
 Mpage  reads  plain text files or PostScript documents and prints them
 on a PostScript printer with the text  reduced in  size  so  that
 several  pages  appear on one sheet of paper.  This is useful for
 viewing large  printouts  on  a small  amount  of  paper.   Uses ISO
 8859.1 to print 8-bit characters.

debian/files:
mpage_2.3-1_i386.deb text optional

debian/tmp/DEBIAN/control:
Package: mpage
Version: 2.3-1
Architecture: i386
Depends: libc5
Suggests: gs
Installed-Size: 98
Maintainer: Andreas Jellinghaus <[email-masked]>
Description: print  multiple  pages  per  sheet on PostScript printer
 Mpage  reads  plain text files or PostScript documents and prints them
 on a PostScript printer with the text  reduced in  size  so  that
 several  pages  appear on one sheet of paper.  This is useful for
 viewing large  printouts  on  a small  amount  of  paper.   Uses ISO
 8859.1 to print 8-bit characters.

Regards,

	Andreas

---

From: Ian Jackson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Sep 96 00:28 BST

> is this ok or is this a bug ? 

This is not a bug but a failure to read the documentation - see below.
I'm closing the report.

Ian.

>From the Debian policy manual:
  3.1.5 Including Priority and Section in the .deb control file         

   If a user installs a package which is not part of the standard       
   distribution, or without downloading and updating from a new Packages
   file, the information about the priority and section of a package will
   be absent, and the dselect package listing will have the package   
   listed under `unclassified'. In order to improve this it is
   permissible to use the -is, -isp or -ip option to dpkg-gencontrol, so
   that the Section and/or Priority is copied into the actual control
   information in the .deb file. However, if you do this you should make   
   sure you keep the information up to date so that users are not shown  
   conflicting information.                                 

>From dpkg-gencontrol's usage message:
...
          -is                    include section field
          -ip                    include priority field
          -isp|-ips              include both section and priority
...

>From dpkg-gencontrol(1):
DPKG-GENCONTROL OPTIONS
...
       -is, -ip, -isp
              Include  the  Section  and Priority fields for this
              package from the main source control  file  in  the
              binary  package control file being generated.  Usu-
              ally this information is  not  included  here,  but
              only  in  the  .changes  file.   -isp includes both
              fields, -is only the Section and -ip only the  Pri-
              ority.