Bug#579457: debian-policy: finer granularity for perlapi-*

[Niko Tyni <ntyni@debian.org>]

On Wed, May 05, 2010 at 02:37:18PM +0300, Niko Tyni wrote:

> > >For convenience, the perl package could include the suffix and/or the
> > >whole string in something like $Config{debian_abi}. In that case we
> > >should probably mandate that packages need to use it rather than derive
> > >the string themselves.

Update: this formulation avoids an unnecessary patch to the perl package
until the ABI is actually changed. It also allows debhelper and the
few other affected packages to easily stay compatible with older perl
package versions.

I'm thinking the dependants could use something like
 "perlapi-" . ($Config{debian_abi} || $Config{version})

diff --git a/perl-policy.sgml b/perl-policy.sgml
index 1d26df7..24d5df1 100644
--- a/perl-policy.sgml
+++ b/perl-policy.sgml
@@ -89,8 +89,11 @@
 	</p>
 	<p>
 	  The <package>perl-base</package> package must provide
-	  <package>perlapi-<var>version</var></package> for all released
-	  versions it is compatible with.
+	  <package>perlapi-<var>abiversion</var></package> for all released
+	  package versions it is compatible with. The choice of
+	  <var>abiversion</var> is arbitrary, but if it differs from
+	  <tt>$Config{version}</tt>, it must be specified in
+	  <tt>$Config{debian_abi}</tt>.
 	</p>
       </sect>
 
@@ -348,8 +351,9 @@ $(MAKE) install PREFIX=$(CURDIR)/debian/&lt;tmp&gt;/usr
 	    a minimum version of the <package>perl</package> package
 	    used to build the module, and must additionally depend on
 	    the expansion of
-	    <package>perlapi-$Config{version}</package> using
-	    the <tt>Config</tt> module.
+	    <package>perlapi-$Config{debian_abi}</package> using
+	    the <tt>Config</tt> module. If <tt>$Config{debian_abi}</tt>
+	    evaluates to false, <tt>$Config{version}</tt> must be used instead.
 	  </p>
 	</sect1>
 
-- 
Niko Tyni   ntyni@debian.org