/usr/share/doc/lintian/lintian.html/section-2.4.html

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><H1
CLASS="sect1"
><A
NAME="section-2.4"
>2.4. Overrides</A
></H1
><P
>&#13;        In some cases, the checked package does not have a bug or does
        not violate policy, but Lintian still reports an error or
        warning. This can have the following reasons: Lintian has a
        bug itself, a specific Lintian check is not smart enough to
        know about a special case allowed by policy, or the policy
        does allow exceptions to some rule in general.
      </P
><P
>&#13;        In the first case (where Lintian has a bug) you should send a
        bug report to the Debian bug tracking system and describe
        which package you checked, which messages have been displayed,
        and why you think Lintian has a bug. Best would be, if you
        would run Lintian again over your packages using
        the <CODE
CLASS="option"
>-d</CODE
> (or <CODE
CLASS="option"
>--debug</CODE
>) option,
        which will cause Lintian to output much more information
        (debugging info), and include these messages in your bug
        report. This will simplify the debugging process for the
        authors of Lintian.
      </P
><P
>&#13;        In the other two cases (where the error is actually an exception to
        policy), you should probably add an override. If you're unsure though whether
        it's indeed a good case for an override, you should contact the Lintian
        maintainers too, including the Lintian error message and a short note, stating
        why you think this is an exception. This way, the Lintian maintainers can be
        sure the problem is not actually a bug in Lintian or an error in the author's
        reading of policy. Please do not override bugs in lintian, they should rather
        be fixed than overridden.
      </P
><P
>&#13;        Once it has been decided that an override is needed, you can easily add one by
        supplying an overrides file. If the override is for a binary or udeb
        package, you have to place it at
        <TT
CLASS="filename"
>/usr/share/lintian/overrides/<TT
CLASS="replaceable"
><I
>&#60;package&#62;</I
></TT
></TT
>
        inside the package.  The tool <B
CLASS="command"
>dh_lintian</B
>
        from the Debian
        package <SPAN
CLASS="systemitem"
>debhelper</SPAN
> may
        be useful for this purpose.
      </P
><P
>&#13;        If the override is for a source package, you have to place it
        at <TT
CLASS="filename"
>debian/source/lintian-overrides</TT
>
        or <TT
CLASS="filename"
>debian/source.lintian-overrides</TT
> (the
        former path is preferred). With that, Lintian will know about
        this exception and not report the problem again when checking
        your package. (Actually, Lintian will report the problem
        again, but with type <SPAN
CLASS="emphasis"
><I
CLASS="emphasis"
>overridden</I
></SPAN
>, see
        above.)
      </P
><P
>&#13;        Note that Lintian extracts the override file from the (u)deb
        and stores it in the laboratory. The files currently installed
        on the system are not used in current Lintian versions.
      </P
><DIV
CLASS="sect2"
><H2
CLASS="sect2"
><A
NAME="section-2.4.1"
>2.4.1. Format of override files</A
></H2
><P
>&#13;          The format of the overrides file is simple, it consists of one override per
          line (and may contain empty lines and comments, starting with a <TT
CLASS="literal"
>#</TT
>, on others):
          <TT
CLASS="literal"
>[[<TT
CLASS="replaceable"
><I
>&#60;package&#62;</I
></TT
>][ <TT
CLASS="replaceable"
><I
>&#60;archlist&#62;</I
></TT
>][ <TT
CLASS="replaceable"
><I
>&#60;type&#62;</I
></TT
>]: ]<TT
CLASS="replaceable"
><I
>&#60;lintian-tag&#62;</I
></TT
>[
            [*]<TT
CLASS="replaceable"
><I
>&#60;lintian-info&#62;</I
></TT
>[*]]</TT
>.  <TT
CLASS="replaceable"
><I
>&#60;package&#62;</I
></TT
> is the package name;
          <TT
CLASS="replaceable"
><I
>&#60;archlist&#62;</I
></TT
> is an
          architecture list (see Architecture specific overrides for
          more info);
          <TT
CLASS="replaceable"
><I
>&#60;type&#62;</I
></TT
> is one of <TT
CLASS="literal"
>binary</TT
>, <TT
CLASS="literal"
>udeb</TT
> and
          <TT
CLASS="literal"
>source</TT
>,
          and <TT
CLASS="replaceable"
><I
>&#60;lintian-info&#62;</I
></TT
> is all
          additional information provided by Lintian except for the
          tag. What's inside brackets is optional and may be omitted if
          you want to match it all.  An example file for a binary
          package would look like:
        </P
><PRE
CLASS="screen"
>&#13;/usr/share/lintian/overrides/foo, where foo is the name of your package

# We use a non-standard dir permission to only allow the webserver to look
# into this directory:
foo binary: non-standard-dir-perm
foo binary: FSSTND-dir-in-usr /usr/man/man1/foo.1.gz
</PRE
><P
>An example file for a source package would look like:</P
><PRE
CLASS="screen"
>&#13;debian/source.lintian-overrides in your base source directory
foo source: debian-files-list-in-source
# Upstream distributes it like this, repacking would be overkill though, so
# tell lintian to not complain:
foo source: configure-generated-file-in-source config.cache
</PRE
><P
>&#13;          Many tags can occur more than once (e.g. if the same error is
          found in more than one file). You can override a tag either
          completely by specifying its name (first line in the examples)
          or only one occurrence of it by specifying the additional
          info, too (second line in the examples).  If you add an
          asterisk (<TT
CLASS="literal"
>*</TT
>) in the additional info, this
          will match arbitrary strings similar to the shell wildcard.
        </P
><P
>&#13;          The first wildcard support appeared in Lintian 2.0.0, which
          only allowed the wildcards in the very beginning or end.
          Version 2.5.0~rc4 extended this to allow wildcards any where
          in the additional info.
        </P
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="sect2"
><H2
CLASS="sect2"
><A
NAME="section-2.4.2"
>2.4.2. Documenting overrides</A
></H2
><P
>&#13;          To assist reviewers, Lintian will extract the comments from
          the overrides file and display the related comments next to
          the overridden tags.
        </P
><P
>&#13;          Comments directly above an override will be shown next to all
          tags it overrides.  If an override for the same tags appears
          on the very next line, it will inherit the comment from the
          override above it.
        </P
><PRE
CLASS="screen"
>&#13;# This comment will be shown above all tags overridden by the following
# two overrides, (because they apply to the same tag and there is no
# empty line between them)
foo source: some-tag exact match
foo source: some-tag wildcard * match
# This override has its own comment, and it is not shared with the
# override below (because there is an empty line in between them).
foo source: some-tag another exact match

foo source: some-tag override without a comment
</PRE
><P
>&#13;          Empty lines can be used to disassociate a comment from an
          override following it.  This can also be used to make a general
          comment about the overrides that will not be displayed.
        </P
><PRE
CLASS="screen"
>&#13;# This is a general comment not connected to any override, since there
# is one (or more) empty lines after it.

foo source: another-tag without any comments
</PRE
></DIV
><DIV
CLASS="sect2"
><H2
CLASS="sect2"
><A
NAME="section-2.4.3"
>2.4.3. Architecture specific overrides</A
></H2
><P
>&#13;          In rare cases, Lintian tags may be architecture specific.
          It is possible to mark overrides architecture specific by
          using the optional architecture list.
        </P
><P
>&#13;          The architecture list has the same syntax as the
          architecture list in the "Build-Depends" field of a source
          package. This is described in detail in the <A
HREF="http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-relationships.html#s-depsyntax"
TARGET="_top"
>&#13;          Debian Policy Manual §7.1</A
>.  Examples:
        </P
><PRE
CLASS="screen"
>&#13;# This is an example override that only applies to the i386
# architecture.
foo [i386] binary: some-tag optional-extra

# An architecture wildcard would look like:
foo [any-i386] binary: another-tag optional-extra

# Negation also works
foo [!amd64 !i386] binary: some-random-tag optional-extra

# Negation even works for wildcards
foo [!any-i386] binary: some-tag-not-for-i386 optional-extra

# The package name and the package type is optional, so this
# also works
[linux-any]: tag-only-for-linux optional-extra.
</PRE
><P
>&#13;          Support for architecture specific overrides was added in
          Lintian 2.5.0.  Wildcard support was added in 2.5.5.  Basic
          sanity checking was also added in 2.5.5, where unknown
          architectures trigger
          a <TT
CLASS="literal"
>malformed-override</TT
> tag.  As does an
          architecture specific override for architecture independent
          packages.
        </P
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lintian 2.5.6 / usr / share / doc / lintian / lintian.html / section-2.4.html
