Hi, The variable poll_num is a local in main() in vrb/src/bin/vbuf.c.
It is used once as an rc for the call ``poll( poll_list, 2, poll_time );'' in main() and is never referenced again. Therefore removing poll_num declaration and the assignment should be semantically safe.
Attaching a patch doing exactly that. After removal dpkg-buildpackage succeeds on my i686 sid machine.
Cheers, -- Dmitri Bachtin
--- vrb-0.5.1.orig/vrb/src/bin/vbuf.c 2006-03-03 17:21:00.000000000 +0100 +++ vrb-0.5.1.new/vrb/src/bin/vbuf.c 2011-10-06 15:00:50.000000000 +0200 @@ -426,7 +426,6 @@ int opt_progress ; int output_fd ; int poll_time ; - int poll_num ; int poll_write ; int poll_read ; @@ -861,7 +860,7 @@ poll_time = display_time - get_time_ms(); if ( poll_time < 0 ) poll_time = 0; } - poll_num = poll( poll_list, 2, poll_time ); + poll( poll_list, 2, poll_time ); //----------------------- // Check for poll events.