Can I use 'apt-get source' from debian/rules ?

[Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd@debian.org>]

I have packaged the Ra extension for just-in-time compilation to GNU R (see
ITP #479233 for details).  It comes as a tarball to be installed on top of
the GNU R sources. 

So I created a new hybird tarball of the two sources. Not elegant as it
creates a 16mb tarball containing a copy of GNU R's 16mb tarball when we'd
just need the 372kb of 'new' Ra files.

As an alternative, could I just start from Ra source, and then in
debian/rules obtain r-base's orig.tar.gz, untar it and then apply the Ra
sources to it?  Or is that too fragile?

Comments, anyone?

Dirk

-- 
Three out of two people have difficulties with fractions.