>From section 8.1 of the Packaging Manual: All fields that specify build-time relationships [...] may be restricted to a certain set of architectures. This is done in brackets after each individual package name and the optional version specification. [...] An exclamation mark may be prepended to each name. If the current Debian host architecture is not in this list and there are no exclamation marks in the list, or it is in the list with a prepended exclamation mark, the package name and the associated version specification are ignored completely for the purposes of defining the relationships.
This makes it seem as if the syntax: Build-Depends: foo [!i386 alpha] is acceptable, but that the alpha arch won't affect the dependency (it means, "everything except i386, including alpha"). That is, it's equivalent to: Build-Depends: foo [!i386] Have I interpreted the situation correctly? If so, perhaps it would be clearer if the phrase "may be prepended to each name" were replaced with "may be prepended to every name", as that's the only reasonable use? Or, maybe change the syntax so that a single leading ! at the start of the list applies to all the elements? -itai
