[Build-common-hackers] Bug#397304: cdbs: configure target does nothing, build target runs configure

[Frank Küster]

Package: cdbs
Version: 0.4.28-1
Severity: minor

Packages that use cdbs, e.g. using something like

#!/usr/bin/make -f

include /usr/share/cdbs/1/class/autotools.mk
include /usr/share/cdbs/1/rules/debhelper.mk

as debian/rules do have a configure target.  However, it usually just
says "nothing to be done for `configure'".  Only when the build target
is invoked is the ./configure script executed.

I think cdbs should either not create a configure target (which is not
mandatory), or better actually make this target useful, and create the
Makefiles in this step.


I need this rather often for QA work: I'm mainly concerned with problems
building documentation, and in this field it's not needed to build the
binaries.  Instead, all you need is a Makefile in the doc directory, and
then you can start debugging.

Regards, Frank

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (99, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.17-2-686
Locale: LANG=de_DE at euro, LC_CTYPE=de_DE at euro (charmap=ISO-8859-15)

-- no debconf information

-- 
Dr. Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)