Bug#1095039: debian-policy: Development files: Allow using linker scripts instead of symlinks

[Bill Allombert <ballombe@debian.org>]

On Mon, Feb 03, 2025 at 12:51:02AM +0100, Guillem Jover wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> On Sun, 2025-02-02 at 23:40:45 +0100, Aurelien Jarno wrote:
> > Package: debian-policy
> > Version: 4.7.0.2
> > Severity: normal
> > Tags: patch
> 
> > The section 8.4, Development files, mentions that the development
> > package should contain a symlink for the associated shared library
> > without a version number. In practice a linker script could be used
> > instead, this is for instance the case of libncurses.so, libncursesw.so,
> > libc.so, and also libm.so for architectures which support the vector
> > math library.
> 
> (Also for libbsd.so.)
> 
> > Here is a proposal to update the existing paragraph: 
> > 
> >  The development package should contain either a symlink or a linker
> >  script for the associated shared library without a version number. For
> >  example, the libgdbm-dev package should include a symlink from
> >  /usr/lib/libgdbm.so to libgdbm.so.3.0.0, or a linker script that
> >  achieves the same effect. This symlink or linker script is needed by
> >  the linker (ld) when compiling packages, as it will only look for
> >  libgdbm.so when compiling dynamically.
> 
> I'm not sure whether it would be worth stating that such linker
> scripts should include the "GNU ld script" string as a comment or use
> the GROUP directive, in the first 512 bytes of the file, otherwise
> ldconfig will be unhappy.

For what is worth,
% cat /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libncurses.so
INPUT(libncurses.so.6 -ltinfo)

Cheers,
-- 
Bill. <ballombe@debian.org>

Imagine a large red swirl here.