[debhelper-devel] Bug#895061: exclusions and dh_missing

Nicolas Boulenguez nicolas at debian.org
Fri Apr 6 21:04:56 UTC 2018


Package: debhelper
Version: 11.1.6
Severity: wishlist

Hi.

Some debhelper commands log some files as installed while they are not,
so that dh_missing does not report them later.
* files missing because of nodocs
* files ignored because the package is not selected (-p/-N/-a/-i or similar)

Should excluded files also be marked as installed?
(for example, dh_installexamples does so)
The selected behaviour should probably be explicit in the --exclude
section of debhelper(7).

Please allow me to suggest a third way: reserve --exclude for
overrides of hardcoded lists, but ignore this option for explicit user
selections.

For example, --exclude is useful to prevent dh_compress acting on a
specific file, or dh_installdocs acting on a specific
debian/changelog, but "dh_installexamples --exclude=foo/bar foo" can
be avoided with a more specific pattern.

Even if the caller ends up generating a list, the result will probably
be more maintainable that black magic inside the dh_ tool.
See dh_installexamples for an example of the complexity added by --exclude.



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