Re: Correctly determining Build-Depends

[Goswin von Brederlow <brederlo@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de>]

Maykel Moya <moya@cubaweb.com> writes:

> I'd followed the step recommended in maint-guide to obtain Build-Depends
>
> $ objdump -p /usr/bin/foo | grep NEEDED
>
> then a dpkg -S on each founded library. But I have now a (not so little)
> list of packages. I can add all of their -dev versions to Build-Depends
> but there are already dependencies among then.
>
> Do exists a tool to automatize this task, I mean, obtain the minor
> subset of packages that resolved (which their respective dependencies)
> to a given a list of packages.
>
> Regards
> mike

All the methods described in the thread might be helpfull but there is
realy only one thing to do to be fairly sure:

1. setup a clean chroot
2. build package in chroot
3. on error:
   - analyze errors and add missing package to build-depends and chroot
   - go back to 2
4. compare resulting deb with the deb build outside the chroot
   - check config.log to see if different things were detected (missing)
   - check ldd output if the same libs are linked in
   - check dpkg -I output if the same depends are there
   ... whatever else you can think of

Going by needed symbols, ldd output or access time of file alone will
give you packages that you Build-Depend on directly but also packages
that are only used indirectly and you needen't Build-Depend on.

MfG
        Goswin