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Re: debstd-like tool for those who don't want to use debmake



On Mon 22 Sep 1997, Joey Hess wrote:
> I haven't looked at automake, but I have written configure.in files. I think
> the two are similar, where you have a large makefile or a shell script
> created from a smaller description file, right?

an autorules could do :
 - macro expansion (similiar to your tool calling scripts)
 - sanity checks
 - investigations (if multi part package expand this way else expand that
   way)
 - have chaning defaults (if i say nothing about section clean, the
   default commands are used. if these change, i don't have to change my
   debian/rules.ar. with debmake i would have to regenrate the default
   debian/rules, or look at the new default and copy the commands)

> Writing configure.in, I always feel that I'm walking on eggshells.
> Will this character be escaped to something else, will m4 interpret it
> in some strange way, etc. And when I have to take a look at the
> multiple-thousand line configure script that is generated, I get lost
> in the complexity.

i know. but i had to look at large configure scripts several times, and
now i get it. thru inverstigations the debian/rules file must not be so
universal. your commands have to deal with single packages and multi
binary packages. an autorule would only copy either code and doesn't
need to create universal code. so it will be easier to read.

> Look at it this way - install, cp, dpkg-shlibdeps, dpkg-gencontrol, all of
> these are "black boxes" that all of us call routinely in debian/rules. My
> programs are actually less complicated than things like dpkg-shlibdeps or
> dpkg-gencontrol.

install and cp are no blak boxes for me :-)
and dpkg-* : yes, they are black boxes, and i don't like it. maybe we
can replace them too :-)

andreas
(no. not me. i'm working on a kde port, and don't have time to write
autorules ...)


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