Re: Confusing "ancient-autotools-helper-file" error

[Ole Streicher <debian-devel@liska.ath.cx>]

Jakub Wilk <jwilk@debian.org> writes:
> * Ole Streicher <debian-devel@liska.ath.cx>, 2011-10-17, 13:42:
>>E: python-pywcs source: ancient-autotools-helper-file wcslib/config/config.guess 2003-10-03
>>E: python-pywcs source: ancient-autotools-helper-file wcslib/config/config.sub 2003-08-18
>>
>> which is completely irrelevant for me (since these files are not used in the
>> build process). I added them to the "clean" file:
>>
>>------------------8<-------------------------
>>wcslib/config/config.guess
>>wcslib/config/config.sub
>>------------------8<-------------------------
>
> This is not what the debian/clean file is (normally) for. debian/clean is used
> by dh_clean, which is typically called in the "clean" target. You should not
> assume that this target is run before the package is built, even though
> dpkg-buildpackage does this by default.

While lintian-overrides helps in my case, I sometimes have the problem
that I need to remove some files from the source distribution. Is there
any other way to do that except putting them into a patch? The problem
with a patch is that it is very fragile: changing anything in the file
itself will cause the patch to fail.

Also, what is the reason that the removal in clean actually fails?

Best regards

Ole