Hi! On Thu, 2012-01-05 at 18:26:13 +0100, Joachim Breitner wrote: > Theoretically, there is no interesting binary package produced from this > source package and it seems that the policy does not explicitly require > that a source package produces binary packages... but I am certain that > this is an assumption buried deep within so many parts of our > infrastructure that it is not a good idea to actually try this.
AFAIK the build daemons will not even try to build a source if their architecture is not listed on that field in the .dsc file. To generate this kind of package with an appropriate Architecture field, you currently have (at least?) two options, both suboptimal: * Every time you build the source you'd have to remember to override the Architecture field on the dpkg-source -b call with -D. * Add a dummy binary package stanza in debian/control for the only purpose of making the Architecture value percolate to the .dsc file automatically, taking into account that the rules file has to ignore such stanza. Another issue is how to track that the build succeeded and that it does not have to be retried, if there's no binary and .changes files, and as such no installed version on the archive. > So the logical conclusion is to build a binary package from the source > that contains nothing (or maybe a log of the test results) and clearly > states in its description that there is no point in installing this > binary package. That's what I did for the last posixtestsuite 1.5.2-4 upload, and while the “dummy” binary package might seem a bit worthless, it has some advantages; it keeps the maintainer build log, something the buildd network does not currently do, and it makes the test results, which in a way could be considered different to build logs, available in an easily installable form. The other advantage of not providing a foo-source binary package is that the natural way of building binary packages is from source packages not binary ones. regards, guillem -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120107014054.ga3...@gaara.hadrons.org
