Document that empty field values are only allowed in debian/control.

[debian/debian-policy.git] / policy.sgml

diff --git a/policy.sgml b/policy.sgml
index 7bb703bef00b6767fe6eb064b7113c4b03f509b5..4adee0b00da29910a0008d6aa549655e4d3a6383 100644 (file)
--- a/policy.sgml
+++ b/policy.sgml
@@ -2558,7 +2558,9 @@ Package: libc6
          the field name is <tt>Package</tt> and the field value
          <tt>libc6</tt>.
        </p>
-
+        <p> Empty field values are only permitted in source package control files
+         (<file>debian/control</file>). Such fields are ignored.
+        </p>
        <p>
          A paragraph must not contain more than one instance of a
          particular field name.
@@ -2701,6 +2703,7 @@ Package: libc6
          file. These tools are responsible for removing the line
          breaks from such fields when using fields from
          <file>debian/control</file> to generate other control files.
+         They are also responsible for discarding empty fields.
        </p>
 
        <p>
@@ -7349,6 +7352,35 @@ rmdir /usr/local/share/emacs 2>/dev/null || true
              </item>
 
              <tag>65535:</tag>
+             <item>
+               <p>
+                 This value <em>must not</em> be used, because it was
+                 the error return sentinel value when <tt>uid_t</tt>
+                 was 16 bits.
+               </p>
+             </item>
+
+             <tag>65536-4294967293:</tag>
+             <item>
+               <p>
+                 Dynamically allocated user accounts.  By
+                 default <prgn>adduser</prgn> will not allocate UIDs
+                 and GIDs in this range, to ease compatibility with
+                 legacy systems where <tt>uid_t</tt> is still 16
+                 bits.
+               </p>
+             </item>
+
+             <tag>4294967294:</tag>
+             <item>
+               <p>
+                  <tt>(uid_t)(-2) == (gid_t)(-2)</tt> <em>must not</em> be
+                  used, because it is used as the anonymous, unauthenticated
+                  user by some NFS implementations.
+               </p>
+             </item>
+
+             <tag>4294967295:</tag>
              <item>
                <p>
                  <tt>(uid_t)(-1) == (gid_t)(-1)</tt> <em>must
@@ -8891,6 +8923,7 @@ fname () {
            would point to <file>/srv/run</file> rather than the intended
            target.
          </footnote>
+         Symbolic links must not traverse above the root directory.
        </p>
 
        <p>