[php-maint] Bug#619036: Bug#619036: php5: Build-Depends uninstallable

Peter Samuelson peter at p12n.org
Mon Mar 21 17:54:07 UTC 2011


> On Sunday 20 March 2011, Raphael Geissert wrote:
> > For apache: Stefan et al,
> > Do you have any objection to switch to libdb5.1-dev (and bd on
> > libdb-dev)?

[Stefan Fritsch]
> Switching libdb version in apr-util has to be coordinated with
> subversion. I am not sure we want that to happen automatically when
> the libdb maintainers change the default version, but I could be
> wrong.

Since only a single libdb*-dev can be installed at a time, and since
libaprutil1-dev Depends on one of them, any apr-util reverse dep is
forced to use the same bdb version.  Even though, in Subversion's case,
we don't use the apr-util frontend to libdb* at all.

My preferred solution is to decouple apr-util and libdb, by not having
the Depends in libaprutil1-dev.  I note that (at least for Subversion)
this should not pose any problems at runtime: libdb uses symbol
versioning, and libsvn1 picks up the correct Depends: libdb4.8 via
dpkg-shlibdeps.

The only reason I can see for libaprutil1-dev to depend on libdb*-dev
is /usr/include/apr-1.0/apu_want.h, a feature where an application can
request an include of db.h.  I wonder if any of its reverse deps are
actually using this very minor feature.  Subversion can optionally find
the right db.h that way, but we don't use it in Debian.

Anyway, I wonder if any other reverse deps of apr-util would break if
it stopped depending on libdb*-dev.  Even if so, adding some
"Build-Depends: libdb4.8-dev" or similar to a few packages seems
reasonable to me.

To answer your original question, I have not tested Subversion with
libdb 5.1.  I will try to remember to do that soon.  There are upstream
indications that it is compatible.

Peter





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