[Pkg-octave-devel] libann Debian package

[Rafael Laboissiere]

* Rafael Laboissiere <rafael at debian.org> [2008-11-03 14:58]:

> * Alexander Bornik <bornik at icg.tugraz.at> [2008-11-03 13:46]:
> 
> > Rafael Laboissiere wrote:
> >
> > > I am writing on the behalf of the Debian Octave Group [1].  We have recently
> > > discussed [2] about packaging libann for Debian, because it is used by the
> > > octave-ann package [3] I am contacting you about the libann package that you
> > > put together at http://debian.icg.tugraz.at/.  Would you be interested in
> > > having your package integrated officially in Debian?
> >   
> > Yes that would be a good idea, although I don't have time to bring it  
> > into a form acceptable for the official release or maintain it on a  
> > regular basis.
> >
> > But I would be willing to assist somebody in doing to former, while the  
> > latter shouldn't be necessary except for compiler version changes, since  
> > ANN sources haven't been updated for years - to my knowledge.
> 
> Thanks for your reply.  I am Cc:ing this message to the Debian Octave Group,
> so that your proposal is registered somewhere.  I will try to get to this
> packaging work as soon as I have some free time.

Ok, I finally got to it and finished the packaging work for ANN.  The Debian
files can be accessed from my Alioth SVN repository [1].  Here are some
comments on what has been done:

* Upstream version 1.1.1 was used, whose tarball was downloaded from
  the upstream web site [2].

* I used essentially the same configure.ac developed by Alexander Bornik, 
  but changed substantially his Makefile.am files.  All the autotools files
  are contained in a quilt patch (debian/patches/autotools-files.diff). BTW,
  Alexander, I put the following in debian/copyright:

    The Debian packaging files are copyright © 2004 Alexander Bornik
    <bornik at icg.tu-graz.ac.at> and copyright © 200 8Rafael Laboissiere
    <rafael at debian.org>, and released under the terms of the GNU General
    Public License, version 3 or later.

  Is that okay with you?

* The test/ann_test.cpp check is built and run, so I am pretty confident the
  package works.

* I did the necessary changes to octave-ann in order to compile against the
  libann0 package, instead of building the sources shipped with the package.
  However, the package is not working in Octave, apparently due to a SWIG
  problem.  Any help on debugging this problem will be appreciated.

[1] http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/private/rafael/deb-pkg/ann/trunk
[2] http://www.cs.umd.edu/~mount/ANN/
 
-- 
Rafael