Re: Computing Build-Depends at build time (and other updates to debian/control)?
On Tue, Aug 23, 2016 at 01:59:13PM +0100, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Josh Triplett writes ("Re: Computing Build-Depends at build time (and other updates to debian/control)?"):
> > On Tue, Aug 23, 2016 at 11:45:03AM +0100, Ian Jackson wrote:
> > > 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.
> ...
> > > I don't understand what your objection to this is.
> >
> > Lack of standardization and consistency.
>
> I think there should be a standard rules target for updating any
> autogenerated debian/control. (And perhaps debian/copyright too...)
> But the lack of a de jure standard does not mean that this approach is
> not best practice.
Agreed; I'd like to see best practice improved to standardize that
procedure, though.
> > I've seen various packages
> > implement this differently (and often not following point (2), insofar
> > as making a change to the package may cause the control generator to
> > re-run during clean or build).
>
> Please file bugs in such cases. If there are many, you may want to
> make a MBF.
I don't plan to look for such packages systematically, but if I run into
one (typically through it breaking the build because I don't have
whatever extra tools the control generator wants), I'll report it.
> > Even if dpkg-buildpackage doesn't invoke this automatically, and
> > the source package instead becomes a generated output format not
> > actually checked into version control,
>
> You should commit the generated debian/control to your version
> control.
Why? That would break the standard principle that version control
should never contain a generated file, rather than the inputs that
generate it. (Exactly the same reason "configure" doesn't belong in
git, only "configure.ac".) I can run the generator, build the result,
and upload it.
(That would also imply not having debian/control as an input file, since
the generation process also shouldn't modify any file checked into
version control either.)
For the same reason, version control wouldn't contain debian/copyright
if that gets generated.
(This also assumes the package has anything that needs to go in version
control at all. If the unmodified output of the generator works as a
source package, then it doesn't have anything to version. I'd only
create a version control repository if it needed to contain a control
template or other data to augment the output of the generator, such as
if upstream doesn't have a sensible Description.)
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