Bug#864544: libgetopt-long-descriptive-perl: option value : and :+ processing are very broken

[Graham Cobb]

On 10/06/17 22:21, Dominic Hargreaves wrote:
> Unfortunately we won't be able to fix either of these issues before
> stretch releases because we're past the last upload date, even if 
> fixes were available.
> 
> Given the last few releases of Getopt::Long have contained various
> regressions and regression fixes I'd also be a bit wary of trying to
> fix this in a stable point release, and indeed of diving in to try 
> and fix the issue.
> 
> This is all a bit unfortunate but I'm not sure there is a solution
> at this point.

I wonder if a solution for the immediate future might be to re-package
the same version of Getopt::Long as available in (the latest update to)
Jessie (which seems to be 2.42)? Obviously this would be missing some
number of other bug fixes but it would, at least, not be a regression
from Jessie.

As you say, it is too late to change the stretch release content, but
that version could be made available in sid and in testing when it is
opened up again (so fairly easily accessible to anyone who hits the
bug), and could be made available as a stretch backport and in a stretch
update release. After that is available, we could go back to repackaging
the upstream version (which would hopefully include both fixes by then)
and get that into testing to shake it down.

Or are there too many important changes to Getopt::Long since 2.42 to
consider reverting?

I am no perl expert but if I can help at all (for example with testing)
please let me know.