Re: [Demexp-dev] About OCaml Debian packaging

[David MENTRE]

2005/9/29, Thomas Petazzoni <address@hidden>:
> They are working on this, using a new debhelper called dh_ocaml. I
> didn't had time to look precisely at it, but you can read the
> presentation mail by Stefano at
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-ocaml-maint/2005/08/msg00007.html.
>
> I think this will not rebuild automatically the packages, but will at
> least automatically report interface inconsistencies.

Yes, the set of dependent packages that need to be rebuilt. It's after
reading Stefano's slides that I wondered why at least official DD
don't have an infrastructure to *automatically* rebuild packages after
an upload of a new package. Or maybe I've not understood. It is the
*upload* of the updated package that needs to be donne automatically.

I have the feeling that it is a mistake to *manually* set in the
package description that your package depend on ocaml 3.08.3 or
3.08.4. AFAIK, with GODI, when 3.08.4 arrives, all dependent packages
are rebuilt automatically, without the need to change the source
package description.

More precisely, taking the same example as Stefano, the source package
for library Wow should Depend on ocaml-base-nox and the build system
should build a libwow-1.0+3.08.3.deb if the build system has
ocaml-base-nox-3.08.3.deb package installed. When the new
ocaml-base-nox is uploaded, the system should build the package
ocaml-base-nox-3.08.4, it should realize that libwow package is too
old and automatically rebuild it a libwow-1.0+3.08.4.deb.

I have the strong feeling that debian packaging relies too much on
manual operations, like changing a Depends: from ocaml-base-nox-3.08.3
to ocaml-base-nox-3.08.4.

> And anyway, for people maintaining backport packages, this doesn't solve
> everything.

You're right.

> When Debian developers will upload ocaml 3.08.4, I'll have
> to compile unstable packages for this version of the compiler, but keep
> testing and stable version against ocaml 3.08.3. Once the compiler will
> move to testing, I'll have to convert the testing package. But, hey,
> this is the funny part of packaging ! ;-)

:(

I suppose you need to maintain one chroot debian per release (stable,
testing, unstable)?

Continuing above example, by forcing you to explicitely set the ocaml
compiler version in package *description*, you are forced to maintain
*several* package descriptions, which is a nightmare for you. Having a
single package description would makes things a lot simpler.


Yours,
d.