Bug#56440: lintian: Should check for shlibs that with incorrect package name

[Mike Hommey <mh@glandium.org>]

On Mon, Jan 31, 2000 at 04:21:46PM -0500, Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org> wrote:
> gsstark@mit.edu wrote:
> > I can't see any reason a package would list any packages other than itself
> > in its shlibs file.  I suggest putting the check in, and if there are lots 
> > of packages doing this then we can pursue in policy why and whether it's
> > worthwhile. But I really doubt it's the case.
> 
> Lots of packages list other packages in their shlibs files. For example, all
> the xaw replacement libraries must do this.
> 
> Hm, I just realized something. I belive that policy or the packaging manual
> currently says that packages that contain libraries should include shlibs
> files. But why? Wouldn't it make more sense if the shlibs file was in the
> associated -dev package? After all, the contents of the file only matters if
> you are doing development with the library. The file format is such they
> could be moved over wholesale to -dev packages with no changes.
> 
> Then the proposed lintian check would make sense, though there will still be
> exceptions.

7 years later, I got hit by this in one of my packages. It would have
helped if lintian gave me at least a warning about the shlibs content...

Sure there are exceptions, but on my system, there are 17 over 381
shlibs. As far as it is known to be exceptions, it's not a problem to
have the warnings there, they could even be put in lintian overrides...

Mike