Bug#853886: cowbuilder: doesn't create _amd64.changes for binary-indep-only or source-only builds

[James Clarke]

Control: reassign -1 pbuilder
Control: tags -1 wontfix
Control: retitle -1 pbuilder: Does not parse DEBBUILDOPTS to determine build type

Hi,

> On 1 Feb 2017, at 19:26, Jens Reyer <jre.winesim at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> after the recent cowbuilder update my gbp build script started to fail
> for binary-indep-only (-A) and source-only builds (-S), complaining
> about a missing *_amd64.changes file (see log below).

This hasn't changed in cowbuilder, but pbuilder has changed.

> I assume the recent changes in cowbuilder cause this, but I'm not
> totally sure about that.  I also failed to find information what the
> arch in the .changes file must be.  I assume it's the host arch.
> Otherwise I'd say git-pbuilder is looking for the wrong file.

For source-only builds, I don't understand why you would want to perform the
build in a chroot. You already have to be able to build the source package
outside the chroot, which then gets copied into the chroot, unpacked and a new
source package is built; why not use the first source package? If your aim is
to check the package builds, you're not actually building any binary packages;
you should instead use the new --source-only-changes option, which will build
binary packages but also generate a source-only changes.

For binary-indep-only, I assume you are using -A, which git-pbuilder sees as a
dpkg-buildpackage option and passes on to cowbuilder via --debbuildopts.
However, cowbuilder/pbuilder do not look at debbuildopts to determine what kind
of build is being done; they have their own flags. Please use
--binary-arch/--binary-indep as per the pbuilder man page (you may need to use
--git-pbuilder-options=--binary-indep to get it passed through properly).

> Personally I see this as rc bug, but that's your call.

The source-only case came up recently and it was deemed that we will not fix
it, and I think the same will be true of binary-indep builds via
--debbuildopts, but Mattia has final say regarding that.

> Thanks for taking care of cowbuilder!

Thanks for using cowbuilder!

James