Re: Problem while checking for php-cli

[Thomas Goirand <thomas@goirand.fr>]

Russ Allbery wrote:
> Thomas Goirand <thomas@goirand.fr> writes:
>> Russ Allbery wrote:
> 
>>> If I were you I'd just depend on php5-cli and be done with it.  The
>>> package is for Debian unstable after all and one can always change the
>>> dependencies in a backport for other versions of Debian.
> 
>> I always get that kind of reply. I agree in general to it, as it's true
>> that the goal is to upload in SID.
> 
>> However, this package is currently installed and maintained on hundreds
>> of servers running Etch and that's the reason why I try not to have
>> things being different when running under SID or Etch. This is quite a
>> nightmare to manage otherwise. I guess that you understand understand
>> that we have imperatives of productions.
> 
>> Anyway, I do understand why you are requesting such thing, and I'll
>> remove all dependencies to php4 for the SID upload.
> 
> Well, I do agree that it's not really necessarily the best option.  :/
> I think Lintian is mostly at fault here.  I really did mean "this is what
> I'd do," rather than "this is what you should do."
> 
>> Well, if I did add this dependency, it's because of the lintian warning
>> that was requesting it. I was really surprised to see it as well, I
>> thought it was a new thing in SID, so I've added php-cli and tried
>> again. I think you'd better change the text message to make it more
>> clear that only php5-cli is requested and nothing else, so nobody will
>> do the same mistake that I did.
> 
> Er... that's strange.  I believe you that it's suggesting that, but I
> can't figure out how or why.  Lintian doesn't have any knowledge of a
> package named php-cli that I can see.
> 
> windlord:~/dvl/debian/lintian/checks> grep php-cli *
> scripts:                tag('php-script-but-no-php-cli-dep', $filename);
> scripts:                tag('php-script-but-no-php-cli-dep', $filename);
> scripts.desc:Tag: php-script-but-no-php-cli-dep
> scripts.desc:Info: Packages with PHP scripts must depend on a php-cli package such as
> 
> It's only mentioned in the tag name, where it's a generic reference to the
> various versioned packages.
> 
> Anyway, I'll poke at it and see what I can do.  I think it may be best in
> the short run for me to just add version 4 back to Lintian's known version
> list so that you can use a php4-cli | php5-cli dependency.
> 
> I think that if you wanted to upload the package with a php4-cli |
> php5-cli dependency, that's entirely reasonable.
> 
> Another possible option would be to ask the PHP developers to add a
> Provides or (probably preferrably) metapackage for php-cli, which would
> let PHP scripts that don't care about the version just depend on php-cli.
> That's what most of the other packages in this situation (Ruby, Python,
> etc.) do.
> 

At the end of this message is the exact message. Lintian "thinks" that
there is no dependency to php5-cli. That's when using this in my control
file:

php5-cli | php-cli | php4-cli

or if I set only:

php5-cli | php4-cli

The only thing that removes the lintian warning is to set:

php5-cli

only. When reading the lintian warning, it makes me feel that I should
be able to use at least php4-cli, maybe php6-cli when it's out, but in
fact the only thing that works is php5-cli only. In fact, my package
DOES work with both php5-cli and php4-cli, so what's in the warning is
really the behavior that I would have like: my package IS compatible
with both.

Would it be possible in the future, that lintian checks that in the
following Depends: statement

a | b | c

there is at least one package of a, b or c, that matches the following
regex:

^php{39}-cli$

instead of the current behavior of lintian?

Would it be considered good regarding current version of lintian to do a
 lintian override so that my package is also compatible with etch?

Thanks for the help,

Thomas Goirand

---------------------------
Here is the lintian message
---------------------------

root@GPLHost:xen650403>_ ~/sources/tmp# lintian -i
dtc_0.27.5-1_amd64.changes
warning: lintian's authors do not recommend running it with root privileges!
E: dtc-common: php-script-but-no-php-cli-dep
./usr/share/dtc/admin/accesslog.php
N:
N:   Packages with PHP scripts must depend on a php-cli package such as
N:   php5-cli. Note that a dependency on a php-cgi package (such as
N:   php5-cgi) is needlessly strict and forces the user to install a
N:   package that isn't needed.
N:
N:   In some cases a weaker relationship, such as Suggests or Recommends,
N:   will be more appropriate.
N:
N: 1 tag overridden (1 warning)