Bug#345619: debian-policy: 4.8. binary-{arch, indep} should fail with error code 2 -> must
On Tue, Jan 03, 2006 at 02:34:45PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Kari Pahula writes ("Bug#345619: debian-policy: 4.8. binary-{arch, indep} should fail with error code 2 -> must"):
> > Debian policy 4.8. states:
> > If one or both of the targets `build-arch' and `build-indep' are
> > not provided, then invoking `debian/rules' with one of the
> > not-provided targets as arguments should produce a exit status
> > code of 2.
>
> Unfortunately there are some problems with this approach.
I agree, it feels like a hack.
> > An alternative would be to require that build-{arch,indep} are always
> > present and both depending on build target, just like already done
> > with binary-* targets. But that would require larger changes.
>
> I think this would be a better idea (although of course you mean that
> `build' should depend on both of the new targets, not vice versa).
Let me elaborate a bit. The most important thing would be to make it
a requirement for build-{arch,indep} targets to be present. Even if
they were empty. They may be implemented by depending on build, which
would build both the arch and indep parts. And build, in turn, may be
implemented by depending on build-arch and build-indep, if the
respective parts of the build process are properly separated to those
targets. But obviously both of the above can't hold at the same time.
But all of the above are just implementation details. The important
change would be to make it a requirement for build-{arch,indep} to be
present.
> You could check the Standards-Version header to see if you want to use
> the new target.
Right, and the change would be backwards compatible too. It will not
break anything if older tools still do make build even if there was
the more specific build-{arch,indep} target available.
The reason why I got to think about this policy change was because I
noticed that every arch's buildd was calling my build-indep and having
doxygen generate 30 MBs of docs. I was suggested on IRC to either
generate the docs in binary-indep or ask for a policy change.
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