Bug#804492: bash completion

[Nicholas Bamber]

Benjamin,
	Answers below:

On 17. 11. 15 21:20, Benjamin Drung wrote:
> Hi Nicholas,
>
>
> I have a few questions about that applied patch:
>
> 1) Why do you copy all bash completions to BC_BUILD_DIR? I see no
> reason for that additional step.

The problem is that the scripts in the 
/usr/share/bash-completion/completions must share the same name as the 
command they are helping. So obviously they can no longer be in the same 
build directory ( $top_srcdir/scripts ) as the actual scripts as those 
will by necessity have the same name.

>
> 2) Why do you 'pkgnames' into the bash completions directory? There is
> no such script. Wouldn't it be better to use on of the existing names
> (like bts) and point all symlinks to that?

This script (which I did not write) does a very simple action of just 
offering up package names. This suffices (or at least is purported to 
suffice for a large number of commands.) I left it as it was for the 
following reasons:

1.) The name describes what it does - deliver package names.
2.) It has historically been called devscripts.pkgnames and my solution 
offered continuity. Or in other words I saw no reason to change it.
3.) I am happy to try and work through all the commands and give them 
optimal bash completions. Eventually this one may therefore diusappear 
all together.
4.) I documented in the change log that this one is an exception for 
generic bash completion.

>
> 3) Why do you create the symlinks via debian/links instead of the
> Makefile where you do all the other magic?
>

This is actually a fair point, although I see no alternative. James 
stated AFAIR that he wanted the devscripts to pick up the location of 
the bash completion directory from the bash-completion package as we do 
in the scripts/Makefile. Putting these links in debian/links does not 
currently support this.

I did experiment with trying to create the symlinks inside 
$BC_BUILD_DIR. But then all that happens is that you do not get symlinks 
at all.

I guess you could have some symbolic links in the install step of 
scripts/Makefile. But I am not sure that is any better. We have a 
separate dh_link step for a reason.

I think a better approach would be if the dh-exec package could be 
extended to support debian/links. Then you could put variables in 
debian/links.