[debhelper-devel] Bug#846174: dh_install: could refuse .install file lines without trailing slash in compat 11

[Thorsten Glaser]

Package: debhelper
Version: 10.2.2
Severity: wishlist

After debugging just another bug because dh_install works differently
from cp(1), I came to the conclusion that, maybe, the next compat should
introduce a change that .install file lines that lack a trailing slash,
as well as dh_install invocations that actually pass the arguments on
the command line and lack the trailing slash, will error out.

That means:


cat >debian/foo.install <<\EOF
foo/bar/somefile usr/share/foo/somefile
EOF

dh_install foo/baz/somefile /usr/share/foo/somefile


Both these will error out, and the probably-wanted…


cat >debian/foo.install <<\EOF
foo/bar/somefile usr/share/foo/
EOF

dh_install foo/baz/somefile /usr/share/foo/


… will work. Collateral damage:


cat >debian/foo.install <<\EOF
foo/bar/somefile usr/share/foo
EOF

dh_install foo/baz/somefile /usr/share/foo


… will no longer work, but as the slash form has worked
like forever this is no big loss. I hope that this makes
it more clear to people that dh_install isn‘t cp(1).

-- System Information:
Debian Release: stretch/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 4.8.0-1-686-pae (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/lksh
Init: sysvinit (via /sbin/init)

Versions of packages debhelper depends on:
ii  autotools-dev            20161112.1
ii  binutils                 2.27.51.20161127-1
ii  dh-autoreconf            12
ii  dh-strip-nondeterminism  0.028-1
ii  dpkg                     1.18.15
ii  dpkg-dev                 1.18.15
ii  file                     1:5.29-1
ii  libdpkg-perl             1.18.15
ii  man-db                   2.7.5-2
ii  perl                     5.24.1~rc4-1
ii  po-debconf               1.0.20

debhelper recommends no packages.

Versions of packages debhelper suggests:
pn  dh-make  <none>

-- no debconf information