expects to be able to source /etc/lsb-release

[Colin Watson]

Binary package hint: localechooser

localechooser expects to be able to source the /etc/lsb-release file as shell:

                [ -f /etc/lsb-release ] && . /etc/lsb-release

Strictly speaking, this isn't safe. The code in lsb_release itself that parses /etc/lsb-release is as follows:

        for line in open('/etc/lsb-release'):
            line = line.strip()
            if not line:
                continue
            # Skip invalid lines
            if not '=' in line:
                continue
            var, arg = line.split('=', 1)
            if var.startswith('DISTRIB_'):
                var = var[8:]
                if arg.startswith('"') and arg.endswith('"'):
                    arg = arg[1:-1]
                distinfo[var] = arg

In other words, lsb_release doesn't require values to be double-quoted even if they contain spaces. However, if you create an /etc/lsb-release file with spaces in any of its values and omit the double quotes around it, then localechooser will break.

We should parse this file properly.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

High because this has been known to break derived distributions and generate support requests.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package localechooser - 1.42ubuntu5

---------------
localechooser (1.42ubuntu5) hardy; urgency=low

  * Don't assume that /etc/lsb-release is valid shell (LP: #214861).

 -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Thu, 10 Apr 2008 00:35:24 +0100