Re: debian/rules "make -f" restriction

[Tobi <listaccount@e-tobi.net>]

Manoj Srivastava wrote:

>         This is what the make directive 'include' is all
>  about. Conditionally, include fileA or fileB. Each file is all
>  uncontaminated now.
> 
>         This is not a technical  shortcoming of using Makefiles.

You're right. What we do might be possible from "within" the Makefile
itself. Maybe even a custom cdbs rule might be possible. But it's not that
easy and it would make the debian/rules less readable.

The solution we have right now is in some way "elegant", because you have
only to deal with a standard debian/rules and besides the different
shebang line there's nothing else to care about.

But putting the technical aspect completeley aside - with our "hack", the
debian/rules still bahaves as it should be. You can run "debian/rules" and
you can run "make -f debian/rules". It's still a "self executing" Makefile.

IMHO the policy is a little bit over-specific, when stating "It must start
with the line #!/usr/bin/make -f".

It seems nobody else has ever thought about changing the shebang line of
debian/rules, so most likely the policy will not get changed just because
I stumbled upon this issue.

So what about just adding a Linitan override and leave everything else as
it is? Our debian/rules still follows the "spirit" of the Debian policy,
even if it does not start with "#!/usr/bin/make -f".

Tobias