[Pkg-octave-devel] questions on packaging an octave toolbox

[Rafael Laboissiere]

* Jameson Graef Rollins <jrollins at finestructure.net> [2012-11-25 14:23]:

> I have an upstream project that builds oct and mex files via swig as 
> part of a much larger autoconf/automake build process.  All of the 
> resulting files (oct, mex, .m) are installed in usr/lib/octave.  There 
> are no octave forge packages created.
>
> So I'm trying to figure out the best way to get those files installed in 
> the right places.  At the moment I'm trying to dynamically generate 
> debian .dirs and .install files based on the output of `octave-config 
> --m-site-dir` and `octave-config --m-site-dir`.  This is pretty 
> cumbersome, though.
>
> Any suggestions?  Thanks in advance.

There are packages in Debian that provide support for Octave that are not 
maintained by the DOG and/or do not use the pkg mechanism.  They address 
the same issue you are facing.  This might be a source of inspiration for 
you.  Here is a non-extensive list of such packages:

   octave-lhapdf
   octave-biosig
   wims
   sbmltoolbox
   fsl-4.1
   xmds
   sdpam
   octave-plplot
   octave-pfstools
   octave-epstk
   mwrap
   mrtrix
   cantor-backend-octave

Note that some of these packages make use of file 
/usr/share/octave/debian/defs.make, which is in liboctave-dev.

Rafael