[Build-common-hackers] Bug#466259: cdbs: Standardisation of the name of the patching targets included in debian/rules.

[Charles Plessy]

Package: cdbs
Version: 0.4.48
Severity: wishlist

Le Sun, Feb 03, 2008 at 06:32:42PM +0900, Charles Plessy a écrit :
> Here is a summary of the targets used by the different makefile
> includes available to the developpers:
>
> File                                          Package To patch        To depatch
> /usr/share/dpatch/dpatch.make                 dpatch  patch           unpatch
> /usr/share/quilt/quilt.make                   quilt   patch           unpatch
> /usr/share/cdbs/1/rules/patchsys-quilt.mk     quilt   apply-patches   reverse-patches
> /usr/share/cdbs/1/rules/simple-patchsys.mk    cdbs    apply-patches   reverse-patches
> /usr/share/cdbs/1/rules/dpatch.mk             cdbs    apply-dpatches  deapply-dpatches

Dear CDBS hackers,

Two weeks ago I have contacted the mainainers of the three most
popular patch systems in Debian, to ask them their opinion about the
standardisation of the name of the targets they use in the includes
they provide for debian/rules makefiles.

I have got an answer from the quilt maintainers, saying that they will
follow the conclusions of the discussion, and the opinions expressed
on debian-devel are supporting the idea of using patch and unpatch as
target names.

Since it is the name already used in dpatch, and since the quilt
maintainers agreed to modify /usr/share/cdbs/1/rules/patchsys-quilt.mk
if needed, the most straightforward way to reach standardisation would
be if you would change /usr/share/cdbs/1/rules/simple-patchsys.mk and
/usr/share/cdbs/1/rules/dpatch.mk to support the use of 'patch' and
'unpatch' instead of 'apply-patches', 'apply-dpatches',
'reverse-patches' and 'deapply-dpatches'.

The direct benefit of such a standardisation would be that in most
cases, when a 'debian/patches' directory exists, there would be an
obvious command to try for applying the patches, that would work in most
of the cases.

I do not know enough the internals of CDBS to evaluate if my request
would be easy to implement, but in any case, feedback would be most
welcome, to know if this is an open issue or not.

Have a nice day,

--
Charles Plessy
Debian-Med packaging team
Wakō, Saitama, Japan