On Sat, 19 May 2018 11:38:00 +0000 Niels Thykier <ni...@thykier.net> wrote: > Control: tags -1 moreinfo > > On Wed, 6 Sep 2006 11:34:37 +0200 Martin Pitt <mp...@debian.org> wrote: > > Package: debhelper > > Version: 5.0.37.3 > > > > Hi! > > > > While evaluating a curious kernel build failure in Ubuntu (where we > > use a dh_strip wrapper to automatically generate debug symbol packages > > for everything) I noticed a questionable behaviour: If the > > package build directory does not exist, dh_* exits successfully rather > > than failing (example in the built pmount source directory): > > > > $ ls -d debian/pmount debian/pmou > > ls: debian/pmou: No such file or directory > > debian/pmount > > > > $ dh_strip -ppmount --tmpdir=debian/pmou; echo $? > > Can't stat debian/pmou: No such file or directory > > at /usr/bin/dh_strip line 192 > > 0 > > > > This also happens without --tmpdir: > > > > $ dh_strip -ppmount; echo $? > > Can't stat debian/pmount: No such file or directory > > at /usr/bin/dh_strip line 192 > > 0 > > > > This also happens with dh_fixperms, so I guess dh_strip is not the > > only affected script. > > > > IMHO dh_* should really fail in that case. Otherwise packages with > > typos or bugs debian/rules silently build and such failures might go > > unnoticed. (in our kernel example, a make prerequisite was missing and > > thus dh_strip did not have any effect; without our wrapper we would > > never have noticed). > > > > Thank you, > > > > Martin > > > > [...] > > Hi Martin, > > I appreciate the report and the issue. In general, I agree with the > sentiment, but in this case I find it difficult to implement in general. > > The problem occurs because debhelper lazily generates the package build > directories. As such, a missing package build directory simply implies > that no helper needed to install anything into the package so far. What > if this helper is simply the first helper that has anything to do in > this package build directory? > > Therefore, I cannot make dh_* fail on a missing package build directory > in the general case. Of course, a missing package build directory with > the -P smells like it would be an issue - although, I would not be > surprised if people rely on this to work (e.g. using -p<foo> for a > package excluded by dpkg-buildpackage -A/-B). > If we are doing this check, then we need to talk about which helpers > would that be and can we come with is the guiding principle for choosing > them? > > Thanks, > ~Niels
Given the age of the bug and lack of feedback on the proposal, I am taking the liberty of closing this bug. Feel free to reopen it with the requested additional information if it is still relevant. Thanks, ~Niels
