How to remove an entire directory (and included files) with a quilt patch?

[Emilien Klein <emilien+debian@klein.st>]

Hi mentors,

I maintain the nautilus-image-manipulator package in Debian. N I M
contains the source code for poster, which is now packaged in Debian.
I thus want to make N I M depend on python-poster, and remove the copy
of poster's source code from N I M's Debian package.

I have to patch one file, and remove all the 3 files contained in the
nautilus_image_manipulator/upload/poster/ folder (and that folder as
well, since it's then empty).

I've created a new patch (`dquilt new`) and added the 4 files (`dquilt
add`) to that patch. I then modify that one file and `rm` the 3
others, leaving the directory empty. A quick `dquilt refresh` and
`dquilt header -e` further, and I'm done (following the Debian New
Maintainers' Guide's instructions [0]).

The package builds, installs and works fine if built locally with
`debuild`, now using the code from the python-poster package instead
of the hard copy. However, I notice these messages repeated several
times during the build process:

package init file
'nautilus_image_manipulator/upload/poster/__init__.py' not found (or
not a regular file)

(that file is one of the 3 deleted files)


When I build the package with `pdebuild`, the package won't build and
exits with this error::

error: package directory 'nautilus_image_manipulator/upload/poster'
does not exist
dh_auto_build: python setup.py build --force returned exit code 1
make: *** [build] Error 2
dpkg-buildpackage: error: debian/rules build gave error exit status 2
E: Failed autobuilding of package
W: no hooks of type C found -- ignoring


I also tried adding that directory to the patch, but it won't let me
add a directory. And if I `rm` the directory before building the
package, the build process will stop with this (pretty similar) error
message:

error: package directory 'nautilus_image_manipulator/upload/poster'
does not exist
dh_auto_build: python2.6 setup.py build --force returned exit code 1
make: *** [build] Erreur 1
dpkg-buildpackage: erreur: debian/rules build a produit une erreur de
sortie de type 2
debuild: fatal error at line 1348:
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -D -us -uc failed


What is the correct way to remove an entire directory and it's
contained files with a quilt patch?

Thanks for your wisdom ;)
    +Emilien
P.S.: Please CC me as I'm not on the list

[0] http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/update.en.html#newrevision