[Dict-common-dev] dictionaries-common new policy fully in testing

[Agustin Martin Domingo]

Hi all,

This message is somewhat late, but as you have probably realized all
ispell dictionaries and wordlists have already passed to testing. Last
problems were fixed with the help of the aspell maintainer (Hi, Brian!)
so we are now left to the usual sid/testing procedures.

A recent addition is that the policy document will also cover, from soon
on, myspell dictionaries thanks to the work of Ren=E9 Engelhard. If your
package also provides or wants to provide a myspell dictionary at some
time, please take a look at the policy document. Note that things
are different from the old openoffice.org-spellcheck-xx packages.
Please, do not upload any myspell package to Debian until Ren=E9 announce=
s
the start of the transition for openoffice.org myspell dictionaries.

Regarding ispell dictionaries, a first cut for a ispell hash
autorebuild system is being implemented (still in its early stage). This
is currently intended to be another possibility for maintainers rather
than mandatory. In its current incarnation, the basics are

Each ispell package (except ipolish, which uses a diferent system)
trying to use this system should provide, for each ispell dict ($dict
stands for the hash base name):

/usr/lib/ispell/$dict.aff          # the usual .aff file
/usr/share/ispell/$dict.mwl.gz     # The compressed munched wordlist

and a symlink

/usr/lib/ispell/$dict.hash --> /var/lib/ispell/$dict.hash

and these other that can be created by touch

/var/lib/ispell/$dict.hash
/var/lib/ispell/$dict.compat

$dict.hash will be overwritten by the real hash file, but will help dpkg
to know which package is the owner for that file and will make sure it
is removed at package removal. $dict.compat contents will be compared to
the current ispell compat version and overwritten with its value after
hash rebuild. If ispell compat version is greater than that in
$dict.compat the hash will be rebuilt.

The only difference for ipolish in case it uses this system is that it
does not need to supply any $dict.mwl.gz. The script will find the
=2Ecompat and compare with the ispell compat version, but if the .desc
file is found for that language 'update-ipolish-hash' will be called.

This is not included already in the policy document, since it is still
in a rather experimental stage, but feel free to experiment, although is
probably better to wait a bit for more testing before uploading any of
these packages to Debian. So the system can be fine tuned before it gets
too stabilized, or even completely discarded if is found to be useless.

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Cheers,