Bug#986400: lintian: false positive about permissions for read-only GNAT .ali files
Nicolas Boulenguez <nicolas@debian.org> writes:
> In GNAT, the compiler also deals with dependencies and rebuild order.
> The .ali files contain the dependency information required to detect
> if a .o is more recent than the closure of all sources it depends
> upon, or if it should be rebuilt.
> By convention, a read-only .ali file tells GNAT to fail if the .o is
> obsolete or unavailable, instead of attempting to rebuild. This is
> recommended for packaged libraries (the .so or .a are available but
> not the .o files).
> This convention may seem bizarre according to modern standards, but it
> has been in use for 25 years, so Adacore would probably need a
> compelling reason to break it.
> For more Debian context:
> https://people.debian.org/~lbrenta/debian-ada-policy.html#Ada-Library-Information-files-2
See also Debian Policy 8.4, which explicitly requires this:
If the package provides Ada Library Information (*.ali) files for use
with GNAT, these files must be installed read-only (mode 0444) so that
GNAT will not attempt to recompile them. This overrides the normal
file mode requirements given in Permissions and owners.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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