Lintian::Data (3)

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NAME

Lintian::Data - Lintian interface to query lists of keywords

SYNOPSIS

    my $keyword;
    my $list = Lintian::Data->new('type');
    if ($list->known($keyword)) {
        # do something ...
    }
    my $hash = Lintian::Data->new('another-type', qr{\s++});
    if ($list->value($keyword) > 1) {
        # do something ...
    }
    my @keywords = $list->all;

DESCRIPTION

Lintian::Data provides a way of loading a list of keywords or key/value pairs from a file in the Lintian root and then querying that list. The lists are stored in the data directory of the Lintian root and consist of one keyword or key/value pair per line. Blank lines and lines beginning with "#" are ignored. Leading and trailing whitespace is stripped.

If requested, the lines are split into key/value pairs with a given separator regular expression. Otherwise, keywords are taken verbatim as they are listed in the file and may include spaces.

This module allows lists such as menu sections, doc-base sections, obsolete packages, package fields, and so forth to be stored in simple, easily editable files.

By default Lintian::Data is lazy and defers loading of the data file until it is actually needed.

Interface for the

CODE

argument

This section describes the interface between for the argument for the class method new.

The sub will be called once for each key/pair with three arguments,

and The first two are the key/value pair parsed from the data file and is current value associated with the key. will be "undef" the first time the sub is called with that argument.

The sub can then modify

in some way and return the new value for that If is not "undef", the sub may return "undef" to indicate that the current value should still be used. It is not permissible for the sub to return "undef" if is "undef".

Where Perl semantics allow it, the sub can modify

and the changes will be reflected in the result. As an example, if is a hashref, new keys can be inserted etc.

CLASS METHODS

new(

TYPE

[,SEPARATOR[,

CODE

]])

Creates a new Lintian::Data object for the given

TYPE. TYPE

is a partial path relative to the data directory and should correspond to a file in that directory. The contents of that file will be loaded into memory and returned as part of the newly created object. On error, new() throws an exception.

If

SEPARATOR

is given, it will be used as a regular expression for splitting the lines into key/value pairs.

If

CODE

is also given, it is assumed to be a sub that will pre-process the key/value pairs. See the ``Interface for the

CODE

argument'' above.

A given file will only be loaded once. If new() is called again with the same

TYPE

argument, the data previously loaded will be reused, avoiding multiple file reads.

set_vendor(

PROFILE

)

Specifies vendor profile. It must be set before the first data file is loaded.

INSTANCE METHODS

all()

Returns all keywords listed in the data file as a list (in no particular order; the original order is not preserved). In a scalar context, returns the number of keywords.

known(

KEYWORD

)

Returns true if

KEYWORD

was listed in the data file represented by this Lintian::Data instance and false otherwise.

value(

KEYWORD

)

Returns the value attached to

KEYWORD

if it was listed in the data file represented by this Lintian::Data instance and the undefined value otherwise. If

SEPARATOR

was not given, the value will '1'.

DIAGNOSTICS

no data type specified

new() was called without a

TYPE

argument.

unknown data type %s

The

TYPE

argument to new() did not correspond to a file in the data directory of the Lintian root.

undefined value for %s (type: %s)

The

CODE

argument return undef for the

KEY

and no previous value for that

KEY

was available.

FILES

LINTIAN_INCLUDE_DIR/data

The files loaded by this module must be located in this directory. Relative paths containing a "/" are permitted, so files may be organized in subdirectories in this directory.

Note that lintian supports multiple LINTIAN_INCLUDE_DIRs.

AUTHOR

Originally written by Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org> for Lintian.

SEE ALSO

lintian(1), <lintian.debian.org/manual/section-2.6.html>