Building dpkg.git snapshots (Re: Bug#605009: serious performance regression with ext4)

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

(pruned cc list)
Hi Sedat,

Sedat Dilek wrote:

> I have tried to build new dpkg 1.15.8.7 from sid GIT branch [1].
> Looks like autpoint is missing in the Build-Depends (see below P.S.).
[...]
>  debian/rules build
> dh_testdir
> autoreconf -v -i
> autoreconf: Entering directory `.'
> autoreconf: running: autopoint
> Can't exec "autopoint": No such file or directory at

Actually dpkg does not declare build-time dependencies on autoconf and
automake, either.  Something like the following is tempting, but since
such bootstrapping requirements are not unusual when building
development snapshots of a package, maybe it would be better to
document it somewhere else (e.g., the Debian Reference).

Thanks for reporting.
Jonathan
---
diff --git a/debian/README.source b/debian/README.source
index e69de29..9e2fd18 100644
--- a/debian/README.source
+++ b/debian/README.source
@@ -0,0 +1,7 @@
+dpkg is developed in a public Git repository; see the Vcs-Git field of
+debian/control.  To build from a git checkout:
+
+	apt-get install autoconf automake autopoint
+	autoreconf -fis
+	apt-get build-dep dpkg
+	debuild
diff --git a/debian/rules b/debian/rules
index 2025f59..92643bc 100755
--- a/debian/rules
+++ b/debian/rules
@@ -33,7 +33,8 @@ endif
 configure:
 	dh_testdir
 
-	autoreconf -v -i
+	@echo >&2 'Missing configure script.  Please run "autoreconf -i".'
+	exit 1
 
 # Configure the build tree
 build-tree/config.status: configure