Bug#345619: debian-policy: 4.8. binary-{arch, indep} should fail with error code 2 -> must

[Bill Allombert <Bill.Allombert@math.u-bordeaux1.fr>]

On Mon, Jan 02, 2006 at 11:44:21AM +0200, Kari Pahula wrote:
> But, since it's not a requirement for debian/rules build-{arch,indep}
> to return an error when the targets are missing, tools such as
> dpkg-buildpackage have no choice but to always call debian-rules build
> even when building arch dependent packages.
> 
> If it was required that the missing rules returned an exit status,
> dpkg-buildpackage could try debian/rules build-arch first and then
> debian/rules build if that failed.
> 
> An alternative would be to require that build-{arch,indep} are always
> present and both depending on build target, just like already done
> with binary-* targets.  But that would require larger changes.
> 
> As they are now, build-{arch,indep} targets are less useful than what
> they could be.

Before going farther, I strongly recommends you read the
bug log for #218893.

Cheers,
Bill.