Bug#486682: lintian: warn if wildcards in .install could let a SONAME bump go unnoticed?

[Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>]

Hi!

On Sun, 2011-09-04 at 08:27:17 +0200, Niels Thykier wrote:
> tags 486682 + wontfix
> thanks

> I think this may have been useful in the past, but debhelper compat 5+
> largely makes it redundant[1].  Since compat level 4 and lower are all
> deprecated this problem is (in theory) non-existing.

> [1] man 7 debhelper:
> 
> v5  Changes from v4 are:
> [...]
> -       dh_install errors out if wildcards expand to nothing.

I don't think this covers what Adeodato was requesting, i.e. to warn
on wildcards that are too loose to let this situation happen in the
first place:

  libfoo.so.1
  libfoo.so.1.0.0

  libfoo1.install:
  usr/lib/libfoo.so.*

On SONAME bump the wildcard matches the new library too:

  libfoo.so.2
  libfoo.so.2.0.0

  libfoo1.install:
  usr/lib/libfoo.so.*

What I understood was being proposed was to warn on these kind of
wildcards and suggest for example something like:

  libfoo1.install:
  usr/lib/libfoo.so.1
  usr/lib/libfoo.so.1.*

or:

  libfoo1.install:
  usr/lib/libfoo-1.*.so

depending on the style of SONAME versioning currently supported:

  /^(.*)\.so\.(.*)$/
  /^(.*)-(\d.*)\.so$/

Which then would produce an error with newer debhelper compat levels.

Thanks,
Guillem