Packaging automation - separation of 'debian/' directory

[Ben Finney <ben@benfinney.id.au>]

Howdy all,

I've seen many recommendations that the 'debian/' directory should not
be part of the 'foo_X.Y.orig.tar.gz' tarball but should always be
added by the 'foo_X.Y-Z.diff.gz', even in the case of "I *am* the
upstream and I prefer to track the 'debian/' directory as part of the
source tree in my VCS".

So that leads to the question: What "best practices" are there for
creating the Debian sources ('foo_X.Y.orig.tar.gz', 'foo_X.Y-Z.dsc',
'foo_X.Y-Z.diff.gz') automatically from a source working tree that
already contains the 'debian/' directory?

Bonus points for a method that *doesn't* involve getting the source
from version control as part of the package build process. A big part
of (my) testing is attempting a build of the package from the working
copy of the source, *before* committing the latest changes to version
control.

I could, of course, blunder around finding my own method for this, but
I imagine it's such a common requirement that there must be good
examples to work from.

-- 
 \         "A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he |
  `\                    becomes a conformist."  -- Ralph Waldo Emerson |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney