Policy: Control data fields must not start with a hyphen character.

Wording: Niels Thykier <niels@thykier.net>
Seconded: Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>
Seconded: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Closes: #706778

diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index 0ef998e9b1dfbf989ad8adc9a1c6b3a4be0537ee..b26d7067cc86dc9c9fc2f347bb1db148c80ce272 100644 (file)
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -54,6 +54,11 @@ debian-policy (3.9.5.0) UNRELEASED; urgency=low
     Seconded: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
     Seconded: Charles Plessy <plessy@debian.org>
     Closes: #707077
+  * Policy: Control data fields must not start with a hyphen character.
+    Wording: Niels Thykier <niels@thykier.net>
+    Seconded: Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>
+    Seconded: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
+    Closes: #706778
   * debconf_spec: Document the 'escape' capability.
     Wording: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
     Seconded: Charles Plessy <plessy@debian.org>

diff --git a/policy.sgml b/policy.sgml
index 138d320cd266b2dcab9ab3c99c17ef3e014bfdf2..dad8d23272a2ea75cf109563e836900ab26f9472 100644 (file)
--- a/policy.sgml
+++ b/policy.sgml
@@ -2542,7 +2542,7 @@ endif
          composed of US-ASCII characters excluding control characters,
          space, and colon (i.e., characters in the ranges 33-57 and
          59-126, inclusive).  Field names must not begin with the comment
-         character, <tt>#</tt>.
+         character, <tt>#</tt>, nor with the hyphen character, <tt>-</tt>.
        </p>
 
        <p>

diff --git a/upgrading-checklist.sgml b/upgrading-checklist.sgml
index a167bcb12fd8b875ef86be0d67dd0adfc24dd445..b02445460ae1ffe844821fc31ebb5a29a0f78191 100644 (file)
--- a/upgrading-checklist.sgml
+++ b/upgrading-checklist.sgml
@@ -40,6 +40,11 @@ picking your way through this list.
 Unreleased.
 
 </p><p><taglist>
+<tag>5.1</tag>
+  <item>Control data fields must not start with the hyphen character
+  (<tt>-</tt>), to avoid potential confusions when parsing clearsigned control
+  data files that were not properly unescaped.
+  </item>
 <tag>5.4, 5.6.24</tag>
   <item><tt>Checksums-Sha1</tt> and <tt>Checksums-Sha256</tt> are now
   mandatory in <file>.dsc</file> files.