Re: autotools during build
Am Freitag, den 12.08.2005, 02:12 -0700 schrieb Steve Langasek:
> On Fri, Aug 12, 2005 at 10:15:41AM +0200, Bas Wijnen wrote:
> > I have some packages which use autotools. I thought it would be good to
> > compile as much as possible, so it is clear all the sources are correct. That
> > means including autoconf, of course.
>
> > However, linda doesn't agree with that:
> > W: gfpoken; Package Build-Depends on automake* or autoconf.
> > This package Build-Depends on automake* or autoconf. This is almost
> > never a good idea, as the package should run autoconf or automake on
> > the source tree before the source package is built.
>
> > lintian doesn't consider this to be a problem.
>
> > My question is: is linda correct and should I not run autoconf from
> > rules.make? Extrapolating that would mean that compilation is not needed at
> > all, if a precompiled version of the program is packaged in the source
> > tarball. That doesn't seem right to me. So if linda is right, then where is
> > the limit? Generated files which are included for portability reasons (such as
> > configure) are ok, but others are not?
>
> The limit is between autogenerated sources that upstream ships in the
> tarball, and autogenerated sources that are expected to be built at build
> time.
>
> If you rerun autoconf/automake/libtool at package build-time, when you don't
> need to, what you get are large diffs against upstream every time a new
> version of the autotools becomes available.
The advantage: If the autotools package maintainers do a good job (and I
believe they do), you will always have up-to-date and working autotools
stuff/macros/scripts in the package. The disadvantage: It surely
increases the diff's size.
> Aside from wasting (a little)
> space in the archive, that makes it harder for NMUers or passing developers
> to see what's going on in your package.
In this case, you could use dpatch to change things and then it is not
harder to see, what is going on.
> The autotools-dev README.Debian is a good guide to these issues.
But it does not recommend a special way. It also explicitly mentions the
way, the OP asks for.
- just my 2 cents -
Regards, Daniel
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