* Added a note about a sticky library dependancy issue that I can't fix.

* Applied a patch from Chris Gorman to deal with spaces in directory
     names, spaces in conffile names (!!), and accented characters
     everywhere in deb -> rpm conversions.
   * Fixed numerous problems when converting from .deb w/o dpkg installed.

Alien/Package/Deb.pm

@@ -77,6 +77,28 @@ sub install {
 		die "Unable to install";
 }
 
+=item getcontrolfile
+
+Helper method. Pass it the name of a control file, and it will pull it out
+of the deb and return it.
+
+=cut
+
+sub getcontrolfile {
+	my $this=shift;
+	my $controlfile=shift;
+	my $file=$this->filename;
+	
+	if ($this->have_dpkg_deb) {
+		return `dpkg-deb --info $file $controlfile 2>/dev/null`;
+	}
+	else {
+		# Have to handle old debs without a leading ./ and
+		# new ones with it.
+		return `ar p $file control.tar.gz | tar Oxzf - $controlfile ./$controlfile 2>/dev/null`
+	}
+}
+
 =item scan
 
 Implement the scan method to read a deb file.
@@ -88,16 +110,7 @@ sub scan {
 	$this->SUPER::scan(@_);
 	my $file=$this->filename;
 
-	# Extract the control file from the deb file.
+	my @control=$this->getcontrolfile('control');
-	my @control;
-	if ($this->have_dpkg_deb) {
-		@control = `dpkg-deb --info $file control`;
-	}
-	else {
-		# It can have one of two names, depending on the tar
-		# version the .deb was built from.
-		@control = `ar p $file control.tar.gz | tar Oxzf - control [./]control`;
-	}
 
 	# Parse control file and extract fields. Use a translation table
 	# to map between the debian names and the internal field names,
@@ -137,18 +150,11 @@ sub scan {
 	$this->group("unknown") if ! $this->group;
 	$this->distribution("Debian");
 	$this->origformat("deb");
-	$this->binary_info(scalar `dpkg --info $file`);
+	$this->binary_info(scalar $this->getcontrolfile('control'));
 
 	# Read in the list of conffiles, if any.
 	my @conffiles;
-	if ($this->have_dpkg_deb) {
+	@conffiles=map { chomp; $_ } $this->getcontrolfile('conffiles');
-		@conffiles=map { chomp; $_ }
-			   `dpkg-deb --info $file conffiles 2>/dev/null`;
-	}
-	else {
-		@conffiles=map { chomp; $_ }
-			   `ar p $file control.tar.gz | tar Oxzf - conffiles 2>/dev/null`;
-	}
 	$this->conffiles(\@conffiles);
 
 	# Read in the list of all files.
@@ -166,12 +172,7 @@ sub scan {
 
 	# Read in the scripts, if any.
 	foreach my $field (qw{postinst postrm preinst prerm}) {
-		if ($this->have_dpkg_deb) {
+		$this->$field(scalar $this->getcontrolfile($field));
-			$this->$field(scalar `dpkg-deb --info $file $field 2>/dev/null`);
-		}
-		else {
-			$this->$field(scalar `ar p $file control.tar.gz | tar Oxzf - $field 2>/dev/null`);
-		}
 	}
 
 	return 1;

Alien/Package/Rpm.pm

@@ -219,14 +219,21 @@ sub prep {
 	my @conffiles = @{$this->conffiles};
 	my $filelist;
 	foreach my $fn (@{$this->filelist}) {
+		# Unquote any escaped characters in filenames - needed for
+		# non ascii characters. (eg. iso_8859-1 latin set)
+		if ($fn =~ /\\/) {
+			$fn=eval qq{"$fn"};
+		}
+
+		# Note all filenames are quoted in case they contain
+		# spaces.
 		if ($fn =~ m:/$:) {
-			$filelist.="%dir $fn\n";
+			$filelist.=qq{%dir "$fn"\n};
 		}
 		elsif (grep(m:^\Q$fn\E$:,@conffiles)) { # it's a conffile
-			$filelist.="%config $fn\n";
+			$filelist.=qq{%config "$fn"\n};
 		}
 		else { # normal file
-			# Quote filename in case it has spaces in it.
 			$filelist.=qq{"$fn"\n};
 		}
 	}

README

@@ -41,6 +41,19 @@ Other things you'll need:
   The Stampede version is at
   	ftp://ykbsb2.yk.psu.edu/pub/alien/alien-extra.slp
 
+Note:
+
+  Alien is really designed to be used to convert from alien file formats to
+  the packaging format used by the distribution you run it on. Of course,
+  it can also convert from your distribution's native format to alien
+  formats, or from one alien format to another. Do be warned though, that
+  if these latter types of conversions are done, the generated packages may
+  have incorrect dependancy information. This is known to be true if you
+  convert a rpm into a deb on a Red Hat system, for example. Even with
+  alien-extra installed, dpkg will be unable to properly calculate library
+  dependancies for the deb it is creating, and you will get a package
+  without any library dependancies.
+
 Programs that use alien:
 
   I know of one program that acts as a frontend to alien - kpackviewer is a

debian/changelog

@@ -1,3 +1,13 @@
+alien (7.6) unstable; urgency=low
+
+  * Added a note about a sticky library dependancy issue that I can't fix.
+  * Applied a patch from Chris Gorman to deal with spaces in directory
+    names, spaces in conffile names (!!), and accented characters
+    everywhere in deb -> rpm conversions.
+  * Fixed numerous problems when converting from .deb w/o dpkg installed.
+
+ -- Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>  Thu, 20 Jul 2000 15:12:08 -0700
+
 alien (7.5) unstable; urgency=low
 
   * Fixed an uninitialized value when converting from a .src.rpm.