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Re: package with new soname: questions about .symbols and uploading



On Thu, Jul 14, 2011 at 11:31 AM, Johan Van de Wauw wrote:



> But I still want to fix the .symbols file. However, I was not able to
> find how I should do it in this case (new packagename).

Symbols files are mainly useful when one SONAME/package name lasts
longer than one Debian release cycles. It sounds like your ABI is
still changing more frequently than that and you have relatively few
reverse dependencies so I wouldn't bother with them at all.


> 1) should I still have a symbols file?

No.

> 2) what are good references for building/maintaining it?

dpkg-gensymbols(1)
deb-symbols(5)
http://wiki.debian.org/UsingSymbolsFiles

> 3) should I recreate it from scratch - or refer to the old version of
> the package?

Yep, from scratch.

> One package which I'm not maintaining relies on libharu. If I upload a
> new version this will need a rebuild. How is this usually handled?

This is known as a "transition". Since it is just one package there
isn't much of a transition (and thus requires much less work), but in
general the steps are:

Test build all the reverse deps with the new lib and possibly file bugs.
Request a transition slot from the release team with a list of needed binNMUs.
Mark the transition bug as blocked by any bugs in reverse deps.
Push to get all the blocking bugs closed while waiting for everything
to get rebuilt.

In your case, just test the reverse dep and request a binNMU for it
from the release team if it works or file a bug if not.

-- 
bye,
pabs

http://wiki.debian.org/PaulWise


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