Control: retitle -1 debhelper: dh_install, globs vs. executable files
Control: tags -1 -moreinfo
Gioele Barabucci:
On 12/10/23 14:54, Niels Thykier wrote:
Gioele Barabucci:
On 12/10/23 14:11, Niels Thykier wrote:
```
debian/tmp/usr/share/man/*/man1/foo.1
```
is correctly expanded by dh_install (`d/pkg.install`) but it causes
dh_installman (`d/pkg.manpages`) to fail.
Whatever problem you are experiencing, it is *not* that
`dh_installman`does not support globs, because definitely does as
debhelper itself would FTBFS otherwise (`debian/debhelper.mapages`
includes globs).
maybe it is the combination of dh_installman + dh-exec?
When using executable debhelper config files, please be aware of
the following:
Otherwise, the output will be used exactly as‐is. Notably,
debhelper will **not expand wildcards** or strip comments
or strip whitespace in the output.
This surprises me a bit. util-linux currently uses both dh-exec and
wildcards in `d/util-linux-locales.install` and it works as "expected"
(but not as documented?):
https://salsa.debian.org/debian/util-linux/-/blob/f7d972e9d/debian/util-linux-locales.install
Doesn't this mean that `dh_install` expands the globs found in the
output of the executable `foo.install`?
Regards,
It does; `dh_install` is a special snowflake of doing everything
differently than anything else. The `dh_install` helper manually does
the glob'ing rather than using the `filedoublearray` for glob expansion.
As a historical artefact, it never knew whether the `install` file
executable and therefore the restriction never fully applied there.
This artefact has (also) been there since the introduction of executable
debhelper config files.
I will accept this as a bug for dh_install not behaving as documented. I
am probably going to end with ratifying the current behaviour rather
than removing glob support (because removing glob support would require
more code and break anyone relying on it even though it should not work).
For everything else, glob support should be done by the executable
itself (possibly indirectly via dh-exec).
Best regards,
Niels
