Package: debhelper
Version: 7.3.12
Severity: wishlist
Hi,
I was just converting the nbd packages to use dh rather than debhelper.
As I was doing that, it occurred to me that there are a few constructs
in the debian/rules file that really shouldn't be necessary.
Since approximately forever, I've had the following construct in my
debian/rules file three times:
ifeq ($(findstring linux, $(DEB_HOST_GNU_SYSTEM)),linux)
dh_foo -a
else
dh_foo -pnbd-server
endif
three times, that is, once each for dh_install, dh_gencontrol, and
dh_builddeb. The reason these are necessary is that while nbd-client
only works on Linux ports, there is no reason the server can't work
anywhere else, and indeed we do build it for The Hurd and the FreeBSD
ports. However, debhelper apparently does not care enough about the
'Architecture:' lines in debian/control, and will happily try to build
an nbd-client package on an architecture that a package isn't supported
on. This will then spectacularly fail when the relevant dpkg-* program
is called.
When reading the documentation page, the '-a' option clearly states 'Act
on all architecture dependent packages', and therefore this does seem to
be consistent with the documentation. However, I believe redefining it
to say 'all architecture dependent packages relevant for this
architecture' would be more useful, while it would be unlikely that this
would bebreaking anything that depends on the current behaviour (the
current behaviour results in either building the same thing as this
proposed behaviour, or failing outright).
Because of this, I now have a debian/rules file with five overrides,
where in theory three should suffice (I need to pass extra options for
dh_auto_configure, dh_install, and dh_installinit). It would be nice if
I could reduce the size of my debian/rules file even further.
--
The biometric identification system at the gates of the CIA headquarters
works because there's a guard with a large gun making sure no one is
trying to fool the system.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/01/biometrics.html
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