A new debhelper program required?

[Shachar Shemesh <debian@shemesh.biz>]

Hi all,


I came across the following need, and was wondering what the best way to
solve it would be. I'm packaging a Thunderbird extension that is 100%
javascript. I.e. - it's an "Architecture: All" package. Thunderbird
expects that all files from such a package that would normally go into
/usr/lib to go into /usr/share/lib. So far, so good.


The problem is that Thunderbird really expects to see its extensions at
/usr/lib/thunderbird/extensions/{guid}. I'm having the not very uncommon
problem of having to have a file in one place due to Debian policy, and
another due to program's requirement.


For the case of a configuration file inside the package, this was solved
simply by moving the file, as part of the build process, to /etc, and
using dh_link to create a symlink from the old to the new location. For
the {guid} directory, dh_link refuses to create a link to a directory,
and I ended up manually creating the symbolic link from
/usr/lib/thunderbird/extensions/{guid} to
/usr/share/lib/thunderbird/extensions/{guid}. It works, and is linda and
lintian clean.


I'm wondering about two things:

1. Should I have solved the problem differently? Perhaps creating a dual
directory structure and symlinking individual files (seems insane to me)?

2. How open are we to the idea of adding a debhelper called, oh, say,
dh_relocate, that does both the move and the symlink creation? It should
also allow moving directories, as all redirections I know are using them.


Ideas, anyone?


Shachar