On Sun, 2020-10-11 at 00:36:00 +0200, Axel Beckert wrote: > Package: debian-policy > Version: 4.5.0.3 > Severity: minor
> Triggered by writing https://bugs.debian.org/971975 against lintian > (which actually was triggered by writing another bug report, #971974 > :-), I noticed that in > > https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-source.html#debian-changelog-debian-changelog > > the description of the date format is inconsistent or at least ambiguous > with regards to how many digits a day of the month can have and if there > should be a zero or a space or nothing prepended to single-digit day of > months. > > Especially this item made me rise an eyebrow: > > > * dd is a one- or two-digit day of the month (01-31) > > Now what? Are one-digit day of months allowed or must we use "01" to > "09" for single-digit day of months? And the commonly used leading space > for one-digit days of months are not mentioned anywhere. > > At least the "01-31" in parentheses clashes with "one-[…]digit day of > month" in the beginning of the item. (Or does "one-digit" refer to that > the number of the day of the months can be (obviously) one digit, but > does not refer to how it's actually written? If so, this should be > clarified.) Right. I've clarified this now locally for deb-changelog(5) as follows: ,--- --- i/man/deb-changelog.pod +++ w/man/deb-changelog.pod @@ -127,7 +127,8 @@ B<Mon>, B<Tue>, B<Wed>, B<Thu>, B<Fri>, B<Sat>, B<Sun>. =item I<dd> -Is a one- or two-digit day of the month (B<01>-B<31>). +Is a one- or two-digit day of the month (B<01>-B<31>), where the heading +zero is optional, but conventionally does not get omitted. =item I<month> @@ -168,6 +169,9 @@ The “trailer” line with the maintainer and date details must be preceded by exactly one space (U+0020 B<SPACE>). The maintainer details and the date must be separated by exactly two spaces (U+0020 B<SPACE>). +Each part of the I<date> can be separated by one or more spaces +(U+0020 B<SPACE>), except after the comma where it can be separated +by zero or more spaces (U+0020 B<SPACE>). Any line that consists entirely (i.e., no leading whitespace) of B<#> or B</* */> style comments or RCS keywords. `--- Thanks, Guillem
