Re: Computing Build-Depends at build time (and other updates to debian/control)?

[Ian Jackson <ijackson@chiark.greenend.org.uk>]

Josh Triplett writes ("Re: Computing Build-Depends at build time (and other updates to debian/control)?"):
> That describes the exact case that motivated me to raise this; the
> uniform upstream packaging metadata used throughout the entire Cargo
> ecosystem contains all the information needed to generate Build-Depends
> (and Depends) on all other necessary Cargo packages.  I'd like to avoid
> repeating that information.

As people have said: there is nothing wrong with writing a program to
generate debian/control.  You just need to 1. put the generated
debian/control in the source package; 2. not have the Debian build
system (ie, the normal rules targets) ever update it[1]; 3. rerun your
generator manually whenever you like.

[1] As I say, if the contents of debian/control only need to depend on
other contents of the same source package, you can write a check to
see whether it's up to date.

I don't understand what your objection to this is.

Ian.

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