Lintian - Static Debian package analysis tool
=============================================

Lintian is a static analysis tool for finding many bugs, policy
violations and other issues in Debian based packages.  It can process
binary Debian packages (.deb), micro/installer packages (.udeb),
Debian source packages (.dsc) and (to a limited degree) the "changes"
files.


Running Lintian
===============

Running Lintian is as simple as invoking

    $ lintian path/to/pkg_version_arch.changes

Alternatively, you can pass Lintian binary/udeb or dsc files directly
instead of the .changes file.  Lintian is designed to work directly
from the source tree (simply use "frontend/lintian" itself).

For information about command options, please run lintian (or
lintian-info) with "--help". Alternatively, you can also read the
manpages lintian(1) and lintian-info(1).

Advice / Tips and Tricks
------------------------

If there is a tag you are not familiar with, you can use "--info" or
lintian-info to get more information:

    $ lintian-info -t no-version-field

If you want to enable all tags, simply use the "Evil and pedantic"
mnemonic:

    $ lintian -EvIL +pedantic path/to/pkg_version_arch.changes

You may want to drop the "-v", which may make Lintian more verbose
than you would like.  Also, keep in mind that "-E" enables
"experimental" tags and "-L +pedantic" enables some very pedantic
tags.

Lintian is not always right!  Static analysis involves a trade-off
between "accuracy" and CPU/memory usage.  Furthermore, in some cases,
certain packages trigger a corner case where the Debian Policy gives
more leeway than Lintian does.

If you have installed Lintian via the "lintian" Debian package, you
can find the Lintian User's Manual in:

    $ sensible-browser /usr/share/doc/lintian/lintian.html/index.html
    # or in txt format
    $ less /usr/share/doc/lintian/lintian.txt.gz

Alternatively, Debian provides an on-line version of the manual on
the [Lintian Web site][online-manual].

[online-manual]: http://lintian.debian.org/manual/index.html

Compiling Lintian
=================

Lintian is written in pure Perl and therefore does not require any
"building" at all.  Consequently, Lintian currently does not have a
build system.  Instead it relies on its Debian build system
(implemented in debian/rules) and debhelper.  Thus, on Debian-based
systems, installing the build dependencies (see debian/control) and
running:

    $ dpkg-buildpackage

will provide you with a "lintian" Debian package.

So far there has been little work in providing a stand-alone build
system as Lintian requires a fair share of "Debian specific" tools and
libraries, including the "Dpkg" and "AptPkg" Perl modules.

We are willing to accept and maintain a stand-alone build system for
Lintian.  Where not intrusive, we may also be willing to accept
alternative dependencies for "Debian specific" libraries/tools.

Developing/Patching Lintian
===========================

If you are interested in working developing patches for Lintian or
just writing your own Lintian checks, please download the Lintian
source and consider reading the doc/README.developers from the source
tree:

    $ perldoc doc/README.developers

We also have some short tutorials in our API docs.  You can compile
the API documentation via:

    $ debian/rules api-doc
    $ sensible-browser doc/api.html/index.html

From there, you might want to start with "Lintian::Tutorial".  If you
prefer to use perldoc (or want to improve the tutorials), you can find
the source files for the tutorial in doc/tutorial.


Feedback
========

Please file bugs against the "lintian" package in the Debian Bug
Tracker.  We recommend using reportbug(1) for filing bugs, but
in its absence you send a [mail to the BTS][bts-report-bug].

Any comments, critics, or suggestions about Lintian or related topics
are highly appreciated by the authors! Please contact
<lintian-maint@debian.org>.  Thanks!

Please note that all data submitted to the Debian Bug Tracker and the
address <lintian-maint@debian.org> will be available to the general
public.  Should you be aware of a severe non-disclosed security issue
in Lintian, then please contact the
[Debian Security Team][report-security-issue] instead.

[bts-report-bug]: http://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting

[report-security-issue]: http://www.debian.org/security/faq#contact