On Sat, 25 Sep 2021 22:09:53 +0200 Niels Thykier <ni...@thykier.net> wrote:
> Control: tags -1 moreinfo
>
> Jelmer Vernooij:
> > Package: debhelper
> > Version: 13.5.2
> > Severity: wishlist
> >
> > Dear debhelper maintainers,
> >
> > For lintian-brush, it would be really useful if it was possible to discover
> > which patterns it would be installing, why and where.
> >
> > I have no idea how hard this would be to implement, and whether this
> > information is readily available in debhelper - but figured it's at least
> > worth
> > starting the discussion and seeing where it goes. I suspect there are some
> > corner cases where it's impossible to discover like where dh-exec is in use
> > (but even some information would be great).
> >
> > I imagine something like a "dh_assistant installed-files" that then reports:
> >
> > [...]
>
> I can definitely see how that would be interesting to you.
> Unfortunately, debhelper is a bunch of "black box" tools that knows
> nothing about each other. Even figuring out which dh_tools will be run
> is non-trivial (but I might be able to do that).
>
> The best I can offer is a "post build" list of which tools installed
> what where. But I am pretty sure that would not be helpful to your case
> (because that would be "did install" and not "would install").
>
> Even if I did find a solution, it would rely on each tool "helping out"
> somehow. In other words, the solution would be incomplete or "unsafe"
> with third party tools involved (or both).
>
>
> Can you describe the use cases where you see the use for this? Maybe we
> can meet somewhere in the middle for them.
>
> ~Niels
>
>
Hi Jelmer,
I am still waiting/hoping for your feedback on this. :)
I would like to know what problem you want to solve using this data. :)
If we are going forward with this that information would be necessary to
understand what to do with:
1) debhelper supported substitutions (should the be expanded or not)
- If they are to be expanded, then when do we do when we cannot
expand them?
2) globs - currently debhelper is strict on expanding globs. The
provided example output implies it should *not* be expanded.
3) search path - debhelper cannot know where in the search path a file
is found unless the file is present (e.g., d/tmp is only available
after dh_auto_install).
4) executable config files. This involves third-party tooling and is
completely out of control for debhelper for how they will behave.
5) do you want tools like dh_link to provide data? It does not
"install" any upstream provided file but it can generate links.
I am still not sure to what extend debhelper can help with/provide this
data in its current form. However, I would still like to know the
problem better so I can look into supporting it in the future.
Thanks,
~Niels
