Re: Policy 12.3: Existence of files in /u/s/doc/ during build?
On Tue, Mar 01, 2011 at 06:36:15PM +0100, Michael Fladischer wrote:
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> Hi,
>
> I'm maintaining sphinx-issuetracker and during the build of the package
> it also generates HTML documentation. To resolve references to
> documentation from other packages the documentation-build-system
> (sphinx) uses files that are included in those other packages (named
> objects.inv). Those files reside under /usr/share/doc/<package> and I
> would like to set those packages as Build-Depends so the objects.inv are
> available and the references can be resolved. Is this feasible or does
> this violate Policy 12.3?
>
> '''
> Packages must not require the existence of any files in /usr/share/doc/
> in order to function [The system administrator should be able to delete
> files in /usr/share/doc/ without causing any programs to break.].
> '''
I would consider that this violates Policy 12.3: for example,
apt-get source --build sphinx-issuetracker would fail on such system.
> There is no reference on what can be assumed during package build.
> Should I refrain from using these files? The impact from not using this
> files would be no/fewer links in the documentation.
This is a false dilemma. What you should do instead is to move theses files to
/usr/share/<pkg>/<something> and change the documentation-build-system to look
for the objects.inv files there. If users expect the files to be /usr/share/doc/<package>,
add symlinks.
Cheers,
Bill.
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