[debhelper-devel] Bug#773965: binNMUed db5.3 FTBFS due to --link-doc check

[Bernhard R. Link]

* Helmut Grohne <helmut at subdivi.de> [141226 11:06]:
> My attempt to cross build db5.3 for x32 from amd64 failed. A log is
> attached. The relevant bits are:
> 
> | dh_installdocs -pdb5.3-doc -plibdb5.3-java
> | dh_installdocs: No packages to build.
> | dh_installdocs --remaining-packages --link-doc=libdb5.3
> | dh_installdocs: WARNING: --link-doc between architecture all and not all packages breaks binNMUs
> | dh_installdocs: Aborting build as this is a binNMU (leading to a broken package)
> | debian/rules:250: recipe for target 'override_dh_installdocs' failed
> 
> As you can see, this is not specific to cross building. Looking closer
> at the db5.3 source package one can see that it only builds two arch:all
> packages. Those are db5.3-doc and libdb5.3-java. Given the
> --remaining-packages switch in the second dh_installdocs invocation, it
> does not cover any arch:all packages and thus should not error out.
> 
> In theory, debhelper does cover for --remaining-packages in
> dh_installdocs. I do not see why this mechanism does not work for db5.3.
> I hope that someone can figure this out.

The problem seems to be 97993b514bfbcc84c213e9e5d68c1b1c3a833ce7
(the commit introducing INTERNAL_EXCL_DOPACKAGES).
With that commit reverted it work as far as my limited tests concluded.

I think the key here is that the binary-arch is called, which causes
debhelper to limit everything to architecture dependent packages.

As above commit causes dh_installdoc --link-doc to specifically also
look at packages excluded because of this it looks at the packages
thus causes this false positive.

	Bernhard R. Link
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