debhelper 7, installchangelogs, renames (was: [RFS] python-lockfile 0.7-2)

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

Julian Andres Klode <jak@debian.org> writes:

> And you should also install RELEASE-NOTES as changelog.gz, as specified
> in Policy 12.7:
> "If an upstream changelog is available, it should be accessible as
> /usr/share/doc/package/changelog.gz in plain text. [...]
> If the upstream changelog files do not already conform to this naming
> convention, then this may be achieved either by renaming the files, or by 
> adding a symbolic link, at the maintainer's discretion."

As Julian says, the file ‘RELEASE-NOTES’ in the upstream source of
this package is best treated as upstream's (incomplete) changelog
file.

That's not a normal name for a changelog, though, so I would expect
debhelper 7's changelog-name-guessing code to skip that name; in fact,
I would hope ‘RELEASE-NOTES’ would *not* normally contain a changelog,
so the default checks should not find this file.

But how can I tell ‘dh_installchangelogs’ the name of this file, with
an elegant mechanism like the ‘debian/docs’ configuration file for
‘dh_installdocs’? It would be a shame if I have to actually invoke
‘dh_installchangelogs’ explicitly in the ‘install’ target, because
that leads to:

    install:
        dh install --until installchangelogs
        dh_installchangelogs FOOFILE
        dh install --remaining

Not terrible, but it does rather detract from the simplicity of the
rest of the rules. Is there a better way?

-- 
 \         “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” |
  `\                             —Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943 |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney