[Build-common-hackers] Bug#472842: cdbs: bases patches from DEB_SRCDIR even if DEB_SRCDIR is not the root of the upstream package

[Timothy G Abbott]

Package: cdbs
Version: 0.4.51
Severity: minor

I have an autotools.mk package whose sources are in the src/ subdirectory 
that I have patches against, and I'd like to be able to set DEB_SRCDIR to 
src/ while still having the patches apply against the upstream root 
directory.

I think the root problem is that there are currently two uses for 
DEB_SRCDIR in CDBS.  One is for packages using the tarball.mk rules file, 
where all of the upstream package's files are under DEB_SRCDIR, and the 
other is upstream packages whose root makefile is in a subdirectory of the 
upstream package.  Ideally, both should support using patches that are 
made against the root of the upstream package, but the root of the 
upstream package is different between the two cases with the same value of 
DEB_SRCDIR.  Currently there's no clean way to specify the case where the 
upstream's root makefile is not at the root of the upstream package.

I think the cleanest way to fix this might be to add a new variable for 
specifying what directory is the root of the package's autotools/make 
build structure, defaulting to DEB_BUILDDIR (but that does not get 
automatically get deleted like DEB_BUILDDIR does).

I also ran into bug #451226 in this package; that's to some extent a 
manifestation of the same root problem.

 	-Tim Abbott