Package: debhelper
Version: 7.2.14
Severity: minor
Dear Joey,
the debhelper command sequencer "dh" isn't really helpful, if the
build directory (i.e. the directory containing the configure script
and Makefile) isn't the top-level source directory. As a prominent
example, I would like to package the XVID library, which has both the
configure script and the Makefile in a build/generic directory [1].
The most obvious debian/rules for this case would look like this:
#!/usr/bin/make -f
%:
cd build/generic && dh $@
but it fails instantly because debian/control cannot be read from this
directory. A possible solution would be symlinking the debian
directory from the top-level directory into build/generic before the
configure rule and remove this symlink in the clean rule, but this
soon becomes very ugly and hackish to make it actually work. For
example, the following debian/rules file works fine, but I have to
manually override every relevant rule with the same stupid and
redundant directory change (and thus I hate it):
#!/usr/bin/make -f
%:
dh $@
override_dh_auto_clean:
ln -sf ../../debian build/generic
cd build/generic && dh_auto_clean
rm -rf build/generic/debian
override_dh_auto_configure:
ln -sf ../../debian build/generic
cd build/generic && dh_auto_configure
override_dh_auto_build:
cd build/generic && dh_auto_build
override_dh_auto_install:
cd build/generic && dh_auto_install
Currently, I am managing this issue by patching a configure script and
a Makefile into the top-level source directory using this patch:
--- /dev/null
+++ xvidcore-1.2.1+debian/Makefile
@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+#!/usr/bin/make -f
+
+all:
+
+%:
+ -$(MAKE) -C build/generic $@
--- /dev/null
+++ xvidcore-1.2.1+debian/configure
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+
+cd build/generic && ./configure $@
and the following debian/rules file:
#!/usr/bin/make -f
%:
dh --with quilt $@
override_dh_auto_configure:
chmod +x configure
dh_auto_configure
However, I still don't feel comfortable with this hack. My propose is
to introduce another set of options to the "dh" command, namely
--configure-dir and --build-dir which can be used to point to the
directories containing the configure script and the Makefile and which
would default to "./" if unset. With these two commands, my
debian/rules file would finally look like this:
#!/usr/bin/make -f
%:
dh --configure-dir build/generic \
--build-dir build/generic $@
without the need for any further hacks.
I think it is important to keep --configure-dir and --build-dir
separate! Consider I would like to package the libmp4v2 library from
the mpeg4ip sources. I would have to run the configure script in the
top-level source directory and then dive down into the libmp4v2
directory to run the Makefile there.
What do you say?
Cheers,
Fabian
[1] Another less prominent example is the rott package, where the
Makefile is in the rott directory of the tarball.
--
Dipl.-Phys. Fabian Greffrath
Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Lehrstuhl für Energieanlagen und Energieprozesstechnik (LEAT)
Universitätsstr. 150, IB 3/134
D-44780 Bochum
Telefon: +49 (0)234 / 32-26334
Fax: +49 (0)234 / 32-14227
E-Mail: [email protected]
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