[Pkg-octave-devel] Python script in latest miscellaneous package

[Rafael Laboissiere]

* Rafael Laboissiere <rafael at laboissiere.net> [2014-06-10 14:17]:

> * Thomas Weber <tweber at debian.org> [2014-06-09 19:47]:
>
>> On Mon, Jun 09, 2014 at 04:24:43PM +0200, Sébastien Villemot wrote:
>>> Le lundi 09 juin 2014 à 16:05 +0200, Thomas Weber a écrit :
>>>
>>>> miscellaneous 1.2.1 include a python script 
>>>> (inst/physical_constant.py) for downloading and converting 
>>>> physical constants from the NIST website. Right now, the script 
>>>> ends up in the installation directory. Should we move it into 
>>>> /usr/bin (or whatever the correct path for python scripts is)? 
>>>> On the one hand, this seems to be correct, on the other hand, I 
>>>> don't want the added overhead of dealing with the Debian Python 
>>>> policy.
>>>
>>> Is this python script launched from an Octave function/script, or 
>>> directly by the user from a shell? If this is the former, then 
>>> leaving it in the installation directory is the right thing to do. 
>>> If this is the latter, then /usr/bin is the path mandated by the 
>>> FHS (and therefore the Debian Policy).
>>
>> AFAIK, it is not used at all in the released package, neither by a 
>> script nor by the user during normal usage. One can use the script 
>> to obtain updated values from NIST; but it is not clear to me if 
>> this is indeed the intended use. In other words, 
>> physical_constants.m is generated via physical_constants.py, when 
>> the latter is called by the user.
>
> It seems that physical_constants.py is only useful at upstream-tarball 
> building time.  In this case, I would completely remove it from the 
> binary package or, at best, put it in /usr/share/doc.  It is true that 
> users might have a need for it, but how often is the NIST database 
> updated?

I just committed a change to debian/rules in which the 
physical_contant.py is made non-executable.  This is enough for 
preventing the Lintian error to be triggered.  However, the file is still 
left in the directory 
/usr/share/octave/packages/miscellaneous-${version}/, which is a strange 
place for it.

I have also fixed a Lintian warning in another commit.  This package 
is also affected by the i486 path issue.

RFU, perhaps?

Rafael