Bug#597340: dpkg-gencontrol: implicit substvar at the end of every field
Package: dpkg-dev
Version: 1.15.8.5
Severity: wishlist
Every time that debhelper needs to adjust a dependency it provides a new
substvar and the maintainer needs to put it in the right field. I was
thinking that we could avoid the second half if some specific substvars
was added at the end of every field.
dpkg-gencontrol could be modified to always append the value of
${implicit:<fieldname>} at the end of the corresponding field. Maybe
we should even support multiple substvars (say
${implicit:<fieldname>:<origin>}) so that there's no coordination problem
if multiple tools want to add something at the end of the same field.
This would even make it possible for debhelper to add dependencies that
are not at all present in debian/control, like for example Breaks... this
would have been handy for example when several dh_* tools have stopped
doing their work on the assumption that the triggerized version of
the postinst snippet was available on the system. With a break, it could
ensure that the relevant package had been upgraded...
With such a system, the ${misc:Depends} that we are currently adding
everywhere would not have been needed.
CCing -devel and Joey Hess to have some input on this idea. Do you think
it would be useful ? Do you have comments and suggestions ?
Cheers,
--
Raphaël Hertzog ◈ Debian Developer ◈ [Flattr=20693]
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