doc: Clarify forward-compatible expectations

--
Encourage better parsers/interpreters of with-colons
and status-fd output.

Signed-off-by: Daniel Kahn Gillmor <dkg@fifthhorseman.net>

diff --git a/doc/DETAILS b/doc/DETAILS
index 1411c71..a264e53 100644 (file)
--- a/doc/DETAILS
+++ b/doc/DETAILS
@@ -36,7 +36,9 @@ Note that new version of GnuPG or the use of certain options may add
 new fields to the output.  Parsers should not assume a limit on the
 number of fields per line.  Some fields are not yet used or only used
 with certain record types; parsers should ignore fields they are not
-aware of.
+aware of.  New versions of GnuPG or the use of certain options may add
+new types of records as well.  Parsers should ignore any record whose
+type they do not recognize for forward-compatibility.
 
 The double =--with-fingerprint= prints the fingerprint for the subkeys
 too.  Old versions of gpg used a slightly different format and required
@@ -358,8 +360,10 @@ pkd:0:1024:B665B1435F4C2 .... FF26ABB:
 
   Every line is prefixed with "[GNUPG:] ", followed by a keyword with
   the type of the status line and some arguments depending on the type
-  (maybe none); an application should always be prepared to see new
-  keyworkds or more arguments in future versions.
+  (maybe none); an application should always be willing to ignore
+  unknown keywords that may be emitted by future versions of GnuPG.
+  Also, new versions of GnuPG may add arguments to existing keywords.
+  Any additional arguments should be ignored for forward-compatibility.
 
 ** General status codes
 *** NEWSIG [<signers_uid>]