Re: dh_perl

[Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org>]

On Sat, Feb 01, 2003 at 12:57:31PM +0000, Roger Leigh wrote:
> Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org> writes:
> > dh_perl doesn't (currently) attempt to calculate general module
> > dependencies, only core dependencies.
> 
> OK, thanks.
> 
> I guess that, due to the nature of the perl parser, adding this
> functionality would be non-trivial?  Or would finding all instances of
> use, require and "use lib" be sufficient?

I would use the various introspection-related modules to do this (maybe
Devel::Symdump or B?), but it's not possible to get it reliably correct
automatically. I think there are plenty of not-particularly-pathological
scripts and modules in the distribution that would easily stretch the
limits of any tool trying to calculate Perl module dependencies.

As such, I'd rather not see something like this in dh_perl, whose output
is expected to be used unmodified. It should be in some other tool which
maintainers can run and then edit the results as appropriate.

-- 
Colin Watson                                  [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk]