Re: Confused by <foo>.dirs, <foo>.install etc
On Sun, May 24, 2009 at 4:57 PM, Jack Kelly <endgame.dos@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, May 25, 2009 at 9:40 AM, Sune Vuorela <nospam@vuorela.dk> wrote:
>> On 2009-05-24, Jack Kelly <endgame.dos@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Mon, May 25, 2009 at 8:07 AM, Richard W.M. Jones <rjones@redhat.com> wrote:
>>>> I have a problem building a library, starting with a dh_make template.
>>>> The basic problem seems to boil down to files don't get moved from
>>>> DESTDIR (debian/tmp) into the actual packages, so the final *.deb
>>>> packages are empty.
>>>>
>>>> It seems like the <foo>.dirs and <foo>.install files in debian/ are
>>>> something to do with this process. However I cannot find where in
>>>> Debian policy these are documented ...
>>>
>>> My suggestion: If CDBS supports your package's build system, use it.
>>> http://build-common.alioth.debian.org/cdbs-doc.html . It calls all the
>>
>> Please do not suggest debian/rules obfuscators, wether it is cdbs nor
>> dh(1), to newcomers wanting to learn packaging.
>
> Okay, will do. Can you please explain your reasoning, though? On the
> surface, it seems analogous to "Please do not suggest Makefile/sh
> obfuscators, whether it is autotools nor cmake(1), to newcomers
> wanting to learn how to build software.".
I'm not sure if there's really a problem with that statement either,
you really should know the basics of how GNU make works with regard to
PHONY targets and the like before you jump into using autotools or
cmake in my opinion.
In any case, the reason to not use obfuscators here is because they
don't solve the problem: they won't know what to install any more than
a manual call to dh_install. At least using the manual call to
dh_install will help teach why this is the case.
Daniel
--
Daniel Moerner <dmoerner@gmail.com>
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