Test::Lintian::Helper(3)

💖 Test::Lintian::Helper 💖

okay so bestie, meet Test::Lintian::Helper — the lil squad of helper functions that show up for the various testing parts of the Debian Package Checker. it lives in section 3 of the manual (iykyk), and it's here to make your testing life so much easier. 🎀

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

use Test::Lintian::Helper qw(get_latest_policy);
my $policy_version = get_latest_policy();

like, that's literally the whole vibe check — one use, one function, and you're off. 💅

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

Helper functions for preparing and running Lintian tests. that's the whole thing! they prep, they run, they slay. no cap. ✨

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🦋 FUNCTIONS 🦋

• cache_dpkg_architecture_values() — makes sure the output from dpkg-architecture has been cached. once it's cached, it's cached, periodt. 💾
• get_latest_policy() — returns a list with two elements, bestie:
  1. the most recent version of the Debian policy 📜
  2. its effective date 📅

two-for-one, iconic behaviour honestly.

• get_recommended_debhelper_version() — returns the version of debhelper that's recommended in 'debhelper/compat-level', grabbed via Lintian::Data, and it's all relative to the established LINTIAN_BASE. 🫶
• copy_dir_contents(SRC_DIR, TARGET_DIR) — populates TARGET_DIR with the files and dirs from SRC_DIR, preserving all attributes but dereferencing links. and here's the cute part: for an empty directory, no dummy file is required. 💖
• rfc822date(EPOCH) — hands you back a string with the date and time described by EPOCH, all formatted according to RFC822. classy. sophisticated. 🕰️

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💀 reminder: keep your placeholders right — SRC_DIR, TARGET_DIR and EPOCH are exactly what they look like. don't go renaming anything, bestie, the functions will NOT vibe with that.

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and that's the page!! brought to you by 🌈 Lintian v2.139.0ubuntu2 🌈, dated 2026-10-08 — go forth and test things, my main character, you're gonna eat. 👑💅✨