On Mon, 30 Oct 1995, J.H.M.Dassen wrote:
> [...]
> Desirable goals for source packaging
> ------------------------------------
> - Upstream sources should be used unmodified.
>[...]
> - Distribute wholly unmodified source
> - Have the source extracted and patches by a 'debianizer' script.
> This could be akin to perl5-style patches (a sh script combined with
> the patch).
> [...]
Back in the eary days of the project, before binary packages and
long before dpkg, I argued for distributing unmodified upstream
sources and debianizing diffs. I lost that argument, but I
had futzed around with a debianizing script, and I find that I
still have a copy. I'll include it below. I haven't retried
it because I'm busy with other things. I had also argued that
the original sources should extract into <package>-<version>,
as is usual with upstream sources, and that the debian sources
should be placed in <package>-<version>.debian. I lost that
argument too and I see that this script perpetuates that lost
argument, which I still believe is not the way we should be
doing this.
Anyhow, here's my very old script. It might serve as a starting
point.
#!/bin/sh
#
# this shell script produces the debian source package
# it requires that that the debian source be in $PACKAGE
# and that the original pre-debian source be in $PACKAGE.orig
# it assumes that this script is run from inside $PACKAGE
#
DIR=`pwd`
PACKAGE=`basename $DIR`
#
# check for the original package
#
if [ ! -d ../$PACKAGE.orig ]
then
echo ERROR: $PACKAGE.orig not found
exit 1
fi
#
# archive the original source package
# we want the tarfile to extract it into $PACKAGE
#
cd .. # get up to the parent directory
mv $PACKAGE $PACKAGE.temp.$$ # rename the debian package
mv $PACKAGE.orig $PACKAGE # rename the original package
tar --create --file $PACKAGE.tar $PACKAGE # make the tar file
mv $PACKAGE $PACKAGE.orig # rename the original package
mv $PACKAGE.temp.$$ $PACKAGE # rename the debian package
gzip -9 --force $PACKAGE.tar # compress the tar file
cd $PACKAGE # back down to the debian directory
#
# make and gzip the diff file
#
# NOTE -- to apply the diffs
# 1. place the original sources in $PACKAGE
# 2. place the the patch file in the parent directory
# 3. invoke "patch -d <patch_file" from the parent directory
#
cd .. # up to the parent directory
diff --context --recursive -P $PACKAGE.orig $PACKAGE >$PACKAGE.diff
gzip -9 --force $PACKAGE.diff # compress the diff
cd $DIR # back down to the debian directory
#
# we're done
#
exit 0
I recall that I later approached this from a slightly different angle,
which might be better. That was to distribute a machine-built debianizing
shell script which wrapped the debianizing diffs in a script to apply
them. I don't seem to have a copy of that, but it ought to be pretty
trivial to do.
Also, I think RedHat does something like this in their package admin
tools. That's been discussed a bit in debian-devel, but I don't think
anyone has taken the time to look at it.
