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Re: automated updates of debian/changelog considered harmful



On Wed, Jun 08, 2005 at 01:01:52AM +0200, Santiago Vila wrote:
> Ok, this is already the second time I have to report a bug like this,
> so I will warn everybody before I find more of them.
> 
> There seems to be a bunch of packages who try to update the changelog
> in this way:
> 
>            dch -a -p "GNU config automated update: config.sub\
>              ($$OLDDATESUB to $$NEWDATESUB), config.guess\
>              ($$OLDDATEGUESS to $$NEWDATEGUESS)" ;\
> 
> whenever they use new config.guess and config.sub files from the
> autotools-dev package.
> 
> PLEASE DON'T DO THAT. Don't change the changelog in debian/rules.
> 
> Adding changes would be ok for an upload which includes source
> (i.e., .dsc and .diff), but it's simply the *wrong* thing to do when
> an upload does not include a new source (for example, the changelog
> update will also happen on builds made by an autobuilder).

Woah, it's not okay for sourceful uploads either. You *cannot* change
anything that goes into the source package at build time. This
includes the top entry in changelog and the source section of the
control file. Trying to do this *will not work*.

At the point when the changes are made, the source package HAS ALREADY
BEEN BUILT. What happens is that the changes made in the currentx build
get included in the *next* source package you build from the same
tree, so the source and binary are perpetually out of sync. This is
BAD.

-- 
  .''`.  ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield
 : :' :  http://www.debian.org/ |
 `. `'                          |
   `-             -><-          |

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