[buildd-tools-devel] Bug#868527: Bug#868527: want sbuild --no-source or something

[Ian Jackson]

Johannes Schauer writes ("Re: [buildd-tools-devel] Bug#868527: want sbuild --no-source or something"):
> Quoting Ian Jackson (2017-07-17 11:31:07)
> > 4. Building and unpacking a git bundle is pointless work when we know that
> >    the destination completely trusts the source, and does not have any
> >    objects already.  A tarball would do.
> 
> Indeed a git bundle is overkill because dpkg-buildpackage inside the
> chroot is not interested in the history stored in the bundle. But
> just using "tar" would not have the advantages of item 1. So "git
> archive" should be used together with its disadvantages (and
> workaround) from item 3.

Quoting your 3:

> > 3. The git approach cannot be easily used with a different VCS.
> 
> The switch could be git-specific in which case it's up to the user
> to make sure that the underlying VCS is really git.
> 
> If the new switch is not git-specific then sbuild could auto-detect whether
> it's git (and then do git-ish stuff) or not (and then just make a tarball).

That would be OK.  That would leave open the possibility of using
other vcs's tarball export functions.

In this context this project came to mind:
  http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/vcs/

> I wonder what the best interface for this feature would be. Even more if we
> consider this a long term feature, existing git workflows as well as dgit...

Yes.  I didn't want to make some wrapper in dgit for this because
1. we already have too many wrappers in our build tools 2. my doctrine
is that dgit should be necessary only if source packages are involved.

Regards,
Ian.