Package: debhelper
Version: 12.2.2
Severity: wishlist
Hi Niels,
I've noticed myself writing the following debian/rules pattern more than
once:
ifneq (,$(filter somepackage,$(shell dh_listpackages)))
somecommand
endif
For dh_* commands this can be improved to
dh_foo -psomepackage ...
because debhelper automatically skips the invocation when somepackage is
not build. This is a great feature. In a similar vein, one can pass -a
or -i to turn dh_* commands into noops.
I think this concept is worth extending. We conditionalize debian/rules
using override_*-arch and override_*-indep already, but in the presence
of build profiles, this often proves insufficient. The package selection
provided by -p, -a and -i helps for dh_* commands, but does not work for
others. How about adding a "dh_do" helper whose sole purpose is to
conditionalize other commands?
dh_do -psomepackage -- some shell command relevant to somepackage
This is a powerful feature with potential to abuse. If you don't like
it, please close this bug as wontfix.
Helmut
