Skip to content

Do not write add / to .deb ar file names. - #1085

Merged
tonyaiuto merged 1 commit into
bazelbuild:mainfrom
aiuto:debsl
Oct 9, 2026
Merged

tonyaiuto merged 1 commit into
bazelbuild:mainfrom
aiuto:debsl

Conversation

@aiuto

@aiuto aiuto commented Oct 6, 2026 •

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Collaborator

Do not write add / to .deb ar file names.
This makes it compatible with dpkg-deb and less incompatible with BSD ar.

  • The trailing / is the SysV/GNU ar way to end a name. GNU ar writes name/ padded with spaces. BSD ar writes name padded with spaces and has no terminator. The / lets SysV names contain spaces.
  • On macOS, ar is BSD ar, which doesn't know the SysV convention and prints the slash as part of the name. GNU ar tv on Linux should strip it and show debian-binary.
  • dpkg tolerates it, but doesn't write it. deb(5) says member names may end in / and dpkg has accepted that since about 1.15.6. dpkg-deb itself writes names with no slash, so our output is not canonical.

@aiuto aiuto changed the title do not write deb components with trailing / Do not write add / to .deb ar file names. Oct 6, 2026
@tonyaiuto
tonyaiuto merged commit efd373d into bazelbuild:main Oct 9, 2026
6 checks passed
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

3 participants