Re: Deleting files from .orig on unpack?

["Bernhard R. Link" <brlink@debian.org>]

* Jonathan Niehof <jtniehof@gmail.com> [100408 01:56]:
> I'm working with a package where upstream uses a flat Makefile and the
> Debian package has been converted to automake. This means the Makefile
> from the .orig.tar.gz gets clobbered in the build process, and then
> removed entirely on clean. So build; clean isn't a no-op. I see
> several ways to deal with this:
> 1) Ignore it and be happy, but since clean doesn't actually restore
> the tree isn't this a policy violation?

If there was a policy against it, then the policy would be buggy because
it would neither document current practise nor would there be any
reasons for such a requirement.

The only sentence in this direction I can find is
"This must undo any effects that the build and binary targets may have had",
which only says what it should do (undo the changes), not how.

Practically you want to make sure that

build - clean - dpkg-source -b

works and produces the same results (except dpkg warning you a file
vanished so it assumes you removed that deliverately) and that

build
clean - build
build - clean - build
clean - build - clean - build

all produce the same result.

> 3) Add a bunch of rules logic to back up the shipped makefile on bulid
> and restore it on clean

Now that is ugly, though there is some example of people doing it
because of problems with their vcs workflow.

I'd suggest to just remove it in clean and make sure it does not break
your build if it is still there.

Hochachtungsvoll,
	Bernhard R. Link