Re: How to include the .git folder in a source package's .tar.xz archive?

[Alec Leamas <leamas.alec@gmail.com>]

On 29/10/2021 07:35, Tobias Frost wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 28, 2021 at 09:02:21PM -0500, Hunter Wittenborn wrote:
> > The problem is that whenever I (and the other guy) build the program with
> > something like debuild, the resulting .tar.xz archive doesn't contain the
> > .git repository in which the 'debian/' folder is contained. I've attempted to
> > do some Googling, but I didn't get much of anywhere with it (I actually got
> > some answers on how to do the opposite for some reason :P).
> >
> >
> >
> > Anything I could try?
>
> For the packaging, I'd implement to retrieve the timestamp from d/changelog.
> (e.g. using dpkg-parsechangleog). Possibly you want to prepare your build
> system that it accepts injecting this timestamps.)
>
> Note that the Debian packaging, when the maintainer uses git for that, resides
> in its own git repository; even if it is now on the same place, this might
> change (e.g. if package maintainer changes). Best is you consider that already
> now and dont rely on the git repo.  to be (See
> https://wiki.debian.org/UpstreamGuide#Pristine_Upstream_Source to keep debian/)


Other solutions could be creating a file like VERSION with relevant git 
data and add that to the distribution. That file can normally not be 
checked into git, it's a chicken and egg problem. The solution is to add 
the logic to autoconf/cmake/whatever is used.

Also, git has provisions for substituting keywords like date and hash 
when checking out data. However, this is in my opinion utterly messy to 
handle.  See git-attributes(1)

--alec