Controlling use of 'ccache' via dpkg-buildpackage?

[John Pye <john@curioussymbols.com>]

Hi all,

Is there any way to allow switchable use of 'ccache' within
dpkg-buildpackage? I am thinking of something like the "-j2" flag that
can be used to switch on and off parallel builds. What about use of
"distcc" during package building? How can I command dpkg to use these
things optionally, only when I want them used?

My reasons for asking are (1) to allow faster debugging of package
builds (even if there might be better ways of doing that and (2) to
allow distributed compilation, at sub-package level.

FWIW I believe this was possible with RPM packages using a file called,
I think, "~/.rpmmacros", which could define local user-defined flags
that the package builder could detect at build-time.

Cheers
JP

-- 
John Pye
http://jpye.dyndns.org/