Re: diald anyone?

[richard@sfere.elmail.co.uk (Richard Kettlewell)]

Bill Hogan writes:
>    But I have the impression that to each file
>
>	debian-package.deb
>
>available to Debian users, there corresponds both
>
>	debian-package-src.tar.gz
>and
>	debian-package.diff.gz
>
>    What is the reason for these `.diff.gz' files?

The other file to consider is the original version of the program
before Debianisation; the diff is a diff between that and the
Debianised version.

One advantage of this is that when moving to a new version of the
upstream source it may be sufficient just to apply the diff to it
using patch(1) and you end up with something that, apart from editing
a couple of version number fields, is ready to go.  It also means that
one can determine what has been done for Debianization by reading the
diff file.

IIRC this is explained in the guidelines document, and the `hello'
package's debian.rules gives a good example of what options to diff to
use.

There has been recent discussion on changing the way things work in
these areas, but it seems to have quietened down for now.

-- 
Richard Kettlewell                 <URL:http://www.elmail.co.uk/staff/richard/>
Work+home: <richard@elmail.co.uk>       Home only: <richard@sfere.elmail.co.uk>