Josh Triplett writes ("Re: Computing Build-Depends at build time (and other updates to debian/control)?"): > That describes the exact case that motivated me to raise this; the > uniform upstream packaging metadata used throughout the entire Cargo > ecosystem contains all the information needed to generate Build-Depends > (and Depends) on all other necessary Cargo packages. I'd like to avoid > repeating that information.
As people have said: there is nothing wrong with writing a program to generate debian/control. You just need to 1. put the generated debian/control in the source package; 2. not have the Debian build system (ie, the normal rules targets) ever update it[1]; 3. rerun your generator manually whenever you like. [1] As I say, if the contents of debian/control only need to depend on other contents of the same source package, you can write a check to see whether it's up to date. I don't understand what your objection to this is. Ian. -- Ian Jackson <ijack...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> These opinions are my own. If I emailed you from an address @fyvzl.net or @evade.org.uk, that is a private address which bypasses my fierce spamfilter.