Debian bug report logs - #972
Packages file corrupt

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From: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson)
To: debian-bugs@pixar.com
Subject: Re: Bug#972: Packages file corrupt

Ian Murdock writes ("Re: Bug#972: Packages file corrupt"):
> The mangled Packages file is caused by the extended description
> of "git", I think.  It contains a few `^' characters, which are
> the field delimiters for pdpkg, if I rememberly right.  This is
> most likely the problem.
> 
> Bill, could you change the `^' characters to `CONTROL' or `CTRL'?

How about using ^A (ie, \001, the ASCII SOH character), or ^\ (\034,
28d, Perl's string array index separator character available using
`$;') ?

These are not legal in package control files (which are ASCII text
files), whereas text strings such as `^', `CTRL' and `CONTROL' are.

If the approach of using a control character as the metacharacter is
taken, pdpkg should of course check that the input doesn't contain the
`forbidden' characters before attempting to process it.

The Packages file is an important database - it is vital to the use of
dselect.  Perhaps the processing script around pdpkg could attempt a
syntax check on the Packages file before attempting to parse it ?

If this is thought to be a good idea I shall provide such a syntax
check program in the dpkg build tree - it's a trivial call to the C
dpkg database manipulation routines.

Also, could the processing script please be sure to update all the
links to the Packages file ?  Atomic mv should clearly be used to
overwrite the old version, so that downloaders never get a partial
copy, but this will of course mean doing the `installation' separately
for each link.  Alternatively the copy of the file currently in
/pub/debian could be made a link to the copy in binary.

Ian.

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Date: Sat, 10 Jun 1995 20:20:52 +0100 (BST)
From: Jon Rabone <93jkr@eng.cam.ac.uk>
Subject: Packages file corrupt 
To: debian-bugs@pixar.com
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Package: ftp distribution

The files 

/packages/linux/debian/Packages
/packages/linux/debian/binary/Packages

on src.doc.ic.ac.uk both appear to be corrupt, although in different ways...
I copied the file to /var/lib/dpkg/available and ran dselect, which then 
fell over complaining about the file. 

Jon.

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