Re: RFS: failmalloc

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

Hi Allesandro,

Alessandro Ghedini wrote:

> * URL             : http://www.nongnu.org/failmalloc
[...]
> - dget http://mentors.debian.net/debian/pool/main/f/failmalloc/failmalloc_1.0-1.dsc

Since I am not a Debian Developer, I cannot upload this.  Some
comments anyway.

> Package: libfailmalloc-dev
> Description: Memory allocation failure crash-test tool (development files)
[...]
>  This package provides the development files for the failmalloc library.

Does failmalloc have a public API?  Is it meant to be linked into
programs without using the LD_PRELOAD mechanism?

If not, what good is a development library for it?

> Package: libfailmalloc0
> Description: Memory allocation failure crash-test tool

I would suggest installing it to

	/usr/lib/libfailmalloc/libfailmalloc.so

.  That way, there is no temptation to link programs to it explicitly.
Unversioned since there is no reason to install multiple versions at
once.

Since you are selling it as a tool rather than a preload library
(reasonable enough), have you considered providing a

	/usr/bin/failmalloc

script to do the LD_PRELOAD automatically?  See fakeroot for
inspiration.

> #!/usr/bin/make -f
> # -*- makefile -*-
> # Sample debian/rules that uses debhelper.

It's not a sample any more, is it?  I'd suggest removing the
authorship notice.

 #!/usr/bin/make -f

 %:
	dh $@

is too simple to require the notice for moral reasons, I'd think.  As
legal reasons go, "without restriction" includes the ability to remove
the blurb.  Or you can copy from
/usr/share/doc/debhelper/examples/rules.tiny by the same author which
does not include that notice.

Hope that helps,
Jonathan