user [email protected]
severity 599944 wishlist
retitle 599944 debian-policy: please clarify section 4.9 "build-arch 
(optional), build-indep (optional)"
usertags 599944 + informative issue
quit

Hi,

For those following along at home, we are discussing section 4.9 "Main
building script: debian/rules", the paragraph concerning "build-arch
(optional), build-indep (optional)".

anatoly techtonik wrote:

> - The build target should depend on those of the targets build-arch
> and build-indep that are provided in the rules file.
> + The build target should depend on build-arch and build-indep targets
> if they are provided in the rules file.
>
> Please, correct me if its wrong, but please make the wording more simple.

I believe the intent is as follows:

 - if both build-arch and build-indep are provided, the build target
   would depend on both;
 - if build-arch is provided but not build-indep, the build target
   would depend on build-arch;
 - if build-indep is provided but not build-arch, the build target
   would depend on build-indep;
 - if neither build-indep nor build-arch is provided, the build target
   is just fine. :)

In other words, the current wording takes into account that only one
of the build-{arch,indep} targets might be provided while your
proposed wording does not.

I believe the current wording has a similar problem already:

        “A package may also provide both of the targets build-arch and
        build-indep.”

It would be clearer to say “A package may also provide one or both of
the targets build-arch and build-indep.”  Like so, perhaps?

-- 8< --
Subject: Clarify that providing build-arch without build-indep (or vice versa) 
is allowed

The current policy is that the build-arch target, if provided, is
sufficient for building architecture-dependent packages and the
build-indep target, if provided, will take care of the
architecture-independent ones; and that people building a package can
fall back to using the build target if the more specific relevant
target fails with status 2.

So it is allowed and perfectly sensible to make a build-arch target
without a build-indep target to go along with it.  Tweak the wording
slightly to avoid suggesting otherwise.

Inspired-by: anatoly techtonik <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Nieder <[email protected]>
---
 policy.sgml |    2 +-
 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)

diff --git a/policy.sgml b/policy.sgml
index 6e04c81..fcafdf4 100644
--- a/policy.sgml
+++ b/policy.sgml
@@ -1943,7 +1943,7 @@
            </tag>
            <item>
              <p>
-               A package may also provide both of the targets
+               A package may also provide one or both of the targets
                <tt>build-arch</tt> and <tt>build-indep</tt>.
                The <tt>build-arch</tt> target, if provided, should
                perform all the configuration and compilation required for
-- 
1.7.4.1




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