Package: debhelper
Version: 13.24.1
Severity: wishlist
Hi,
it would be great if <package>.install files would support some kind of
exclusion pattern, mirroring the -X option.
For example, given the following directory tree created by dh_auto_install:
debian/tmp/usr/share/foo/bar/baz
debian/tmp/usr/share/foo/bar/baz/qux.txt
debian/tmp/usr/share/foo/bar/baz/qux.txt-SKIP
debian/tmp/usr/share/foo/bar/baz/dont-install-me.so
If I needed to keep this tree in the final package, the easiest way I
guess would be a <package>.install with
usr/share/foo /usr/share/
However this would also copy the unwanted qux.txt-SKIP and
dont-install-me.so files.
What I do now is remove them in an execute_after_dh_auto_install.
I guess I could also override dh_install and add some -Xs, but this can
get unwieldy. Also, it would add a bit of confusion to have part of
dh_install's runtime configuration in d/rules, and the other in a
<package>.install.
If <package>.install files would support exclusion patterns, then this
would be really easy to do. Something like:
usr/share/foo /usr/share
!usr/share/foo/bar/baz/qux.txt-SKIP
!usr/share/foo/bar/baz/dont-install-me.so
To be clear, this is just about introducing a pattern. The logic should
of course be the same as for -X.
Best,
Christian
