[debhelper-devel] Bug#815506: Bug#815506: dh_install: not-installed requires debian/tmp/ prefix

[Drew Parsons]

On Sat, 2016-07-16 at 09:09 +0000, Niels Thykier wrote:
> 
> 
> My reply was to understand/refute your remark:
> 
> """
> It's even worse than that. debhelper now no longer installs by
> default
> into debian/tmp, but into individual package subdirs, so Felix's
> workaround does not work.
> """


Take the transition from mirrormagic 2.0.2.0deb1-12 to -13 as an
example.  I placed .gitignore in the subdir scores to keep the empty
upstream directory in the git repo.  scores was installed into
/var/games/mirrormagic using debian/mirrormagic.install

Obviously I don't want .gitignore installed in the mirrormagic deb
package.  Trying to prevent its installation using debian/not-installed 
is the bug here.  

>From the wording of the man page, "List the files that are deliberately
not installed in any binary package.", I would expect, or hope, that
just .gitignore alone in not-installed to work.

The manpage also says "Paths listed in this file are ignored". Since
the entry in mirrormagic.install was
"scores                 var/games/mirrormagic", it would make sense
that "var/games/mirrormagic/scores/.gitignore" in not-installed should
work, even if .gitignore alone does not.

That's the bug that Felix reported, but he found a workaround by
prefixing debian/tmp/...

But debian/tmp is not always used. An alternative workaround would be
prefixing with debian/<package>/..

But none of these alternatives work. None of the possible permutations

  .gitignore
  var/games/mirrormagic/scores/.gitignore
  /var/games/mirrormagic/scores/.gitignore
  debian/tmp/var/games/mirrormagic/scores/.gitignore
  debian/mirrormagic/var/games/mirrormagic/scores/.gitignore

in debian/not-installed manages to prevent .gitignore from being
installed.