Re: Using a script to generate orig tarball

["Emmet Hikory" <emmet.hikory@gmail.com>]

On Jan 2, 2008 6:51 AM, Andres Mejia wrote:
> As far as the get-orig-source target in debian/rules go, the behavior
> in svn-buildpackage is that it expects there to be an orig tarball
> first before running anything for debian/rules, so having
> get-orig-source target wouldn't help svn-buildpackage. There could be
> a check for such a target in svn-buildpackage, but I think it would
> complicate the code for svn-buildpackage more than it has to, plus it
> would assume things like say the maintainer uses a get-orig-source
> target instead of some other named target. It would be easier to have
> the get-orig-source target call a script itself. Pseudocode for
> something like this would go:
>
> get-orig-source:
>     dh_testdir
>     GET_ORIG_SCRIPT=$(CWD)/debian/path_to_script
>     cd .. && \
>         $(GET_ORIG_SCRIPT)

    That's just exchanging make semantics for shell semantics.  I like
get-orig-source as it is documented as the appropriate target in
policy, and so reduces the number of Games-Team specific pieces of
knowledge one needs to track.  If one has debian/, it's just a matter
of calling debian/rules get-orig-source to collect an updated
orig.tar.gz (where implemented).  While this may not be available in
every case, I suspect the same would be true for any other
script-based method.  For orig.tar.gz files already uploaded, the
repositories are a good common source of the right tarball (as these
cannot be changed without rename).

> As far as having the script either be the application of the watch
> file, does this mean having uscan/uupdate call the script?

    No, rather using `uscan --force-download` in place of a script
where a working watch file exists,  the package is in sync with
upstream (or intended to be so after update), and no repack is
required.  In the case where the package is not in sync with upstream,
the repository orig.tar.gz is a better choice (either SVN or mirror
repository: doesn't really matter).  In the case where a repack is
required, get-orig-source is a better mechanism.  In the case where
the watch file is broken, this is a bug (see thread at (1)).

1: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2007/11/msg00076.html

-- 
Emmet HIKORY