1 Check-Script: description
2 Author: Christian Schwarz <schwarz@debian.org>
7 Tag: package-has-no-description
10 Info: The binary package does not have a "Description:" control field.
13 Tag: description-synopsis-is-empty
16 Info: The first line in the "Description:" is empty.
18 Tag: extended-description-is-empty
22 Info: The extended description (the lines after the first line of the
23 "Description:" field) is empty.
25 Tag: extended-description-is-probably-too-short
28 Ref: devref 6.2.1, devref 6.2.3
29 Info: The extended description (the lines after the first line of the
30 "Description:" field) is only one or two lines long. The extended
31 description should provide a user with enough information to decide
32 whether they want to install this package, what it contains, and how it
33 compares to similar packages. One or two lines is normally not enough to
36 Tag: description-contains-invalid-control-statement
39 Info: The description contains a line starting with a dot (.). This is
43 Tag: description-too-long
46 Info: The first line of the "Description:" must not exceed 80 characters.
49 Tag: description-starts-with-package-name
52 Info: The first line of the "Description:" should not start with the
53 package name. For example, the package <tt>foo</tt> should not
54 have a description like this: "foo is a program that...".
57 Tag: description-contains-tabs
60 Info: The package "Description:" must not contain tab characters.
63 Tag: description-starts-with-leading-spaces
66 Info: The package "Description:" starts with leading spaces. Usually,
67 leading spaces are used to switch "verbatim display" on (i.e., lines
68 are not wrapped) so this might be a bug in the package.
70 Tag: possible-unindented-list-in-extended-description
73 Info: The package "Description:" contains an unindented line which
74 starts with a dash (-) or asterisk (*). If this was meant to be a
75 list of items these lines need to be indented (dselect would
76 word-wrap these lines otherwise).
79 Tag: description-is-debmake-template
82 Info: The synopsis or the extended description just says "Missing",
83 which is a template provided by debmake.
85 Tag: description-is-dh_make-template
88 Info: The synopsis or the extended description has not been changed
89 from the template provided by dh_make.
91 Tag: description-contains-dh-make-perl-template
94 Info: The extended description contains the statement that it was
95 automagically extracted by dh-make-perl. Please check the description
96 for correctness and usefulness and remove the dh-make-perl statement
97 to signal that you have done so.
99 Tag: description-synopsis-might-not-be-phrased-properly
102 Info: The synopsis (first line in the package "Description:" field, the
103 short description) ends with a full stop "." character. This is not
104 necessary, as the synopsis doesn't need to be a full sentence. It is
105 recommended that a descriptive phrase is used instead.
107 Note also that the synopsis is not part of the rest of the "Description:"
111 Tag: description-synopsis-is-duplicated
114 Info: The first line of the extended Description: should not repeat the
115 synopsis exactly. This indicates that either the synopsis is badly formed
116 or that the extended description has been wrongly copied and pasted.
119 Tag: extended-description-line-too-long
122 Info: One or more lines in the extended part of the "Description:" field
123 have been found to contain more than 80 characters. For the benefit of
124 users of 80x25 terminals, it is recommended that the lines do not exceed
128 Tag: description-contains-homepage
131 Info: The extended description contains a "Homepage:" pseudo-header
132 following the old Developer's Reference recommendation. As of 1.14.6,
133 dpkg now supports Homepage: as a regular field in
134 <tt>debian/control</tt>. This header should be moved from the extended
135 description to the fields for the relevant source or binary packages.
137 Tag: spelling-error-in-description
140 Info: Maemian found a spelling or capitalization error in the package
141 description. Maemian has a list of common misspellings that it looks
142 for. It does not have a dictionary like a spelling checker does. It is
143 particularly picky about spelling and capitalization in package
144 descriptions since they're very visible to end users.
146 Tag: description-contains-duplicated-word
149 Info: The description contains a duplicated word. Usually this is a
150 mistake, or at least an awkward phrasing.
152 Tag: using-first-person-in-description
155 Info: You should avoid the use of first person ("I will do this..." or
156 "We recommend..."). The computer is not a person and the description
157 does not speak for the maintainer or maintainers. Instead, use a more
158 neutral construction and try to rephrase into factual statements about
161 For example, rather than saying "I don't recommend this package if you
162 are short on memory," say something like "this package is not suitable
163 for low-memory systems."
165 Tag: description-possibly-contains-homepage
167 Certainty: wild-guess
168 Info: This package has no Homepage field but has a URL in the description
169 and wording that might indicate this is the package Homepage. If it is,
170 add a Homepage control field containing it rather than mentioning it in
171 the package description.