Re: create deb sources from perl packages

[Paolo Molaro <lupus@debian.org>]

On 10/24/00 Joey Hess wrote:
> > dh-make-perl will create the files required to build
> > a debian source package out of a perl package.
> 
> Couldn't this just be part of dh-make? Why do we need a new package?

BTW, version 0.2 is in incoming now.

Well, some of the features overlap with what dh-make does
for other kinds of upstream software. But there are some
other features that where planned and that I just added
that make it a somewhat different tool now.

You can now do something like this:

	dh-make-perl --build --install --cpan 'Some::perl::module'

and a debian package will be created and installed for you.
A lot of work needs to be done to tweak the override file for
some perl modules to ensure it works in a debian system
without messing up dependencies and creating conflicts...
That will require the package has its own release schedule.
And because of that a little more visibility will help
building a better override database (what about mentioning
it in the DWN? hint, hint:-).

Moreover, dh-make-perl is targeted more at an end-user than
at a debian developer.
I don't think we want all the CPAN modules in Debian,
because that is a lot of work and possibly a duplication
of both ftp space and developer work (and most of them are
useful for few people), but it is often
useful to install a random perl module and have it
integrated nicely with a Debian system. This is possible
because you can retreive more info from perl module packages
than from a random .tar.gz you find in the net and they
work with MakeMaker (I'm going to make use of the dependency
information there too).

Thanks,
	lupus

-- 
Paolo Molaro, Open Source Developer, Linuxcare, Inc.
+39.049.8043411 tel, +39.049.8043412 fax
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