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Re: Splitting package



Kapil Hari Paranjape wrote:

Hello,

I am currently the maintainer (non-DD) of tex4ht. This package consists of
only two (!) compiled executables and a large number of Arch: all files.

At least in etch I would like to split this package as suggested in best
packaging practice (Debian Ref). But that location gives hints about new
packages but not about how to handle the upgrade issues. Any place where
I can find some hints on that? Or anyone with prior experience on this
who has the time to drop me some hints? All suggestions accepted
gratefully :-)

Thanks in advance,

Kapil.

I believe what you want to do here is have the new -data or -common package have a versioned Conflicts: with the old, non-split package.

Example:

foo 7.6.5-1 is non-split

foo and foo-common 7.6.5-2 are the new split packages

The debian/control file should look something like:

Package: foo-common
Conflicts: foo (<< 7.6.5-2)
Replaces: foo (<< 7.6.5-2)

For example, moon-lander was split into moon-lander and moon-lander data at version 1:1.0-3, and its debian/control looks like this:

+Package: moon-lander-data
+Architecture: all
+Depends: ${misc:Depends}
+Conflicts: moon-lander (<< 1:1.0-3)


Whether you use <= or << is mostly a matter of taste, but make sure you understand the difference, of course. ;)

If anybody wants to correct me by all means speak up, I haven't actually done this myself, I'm only basing it off what I've seen.



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