Re: Q about Build-Depends vs Build-Depends-Indep

[Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho <gaia@iki.fi>]

On Thu, Jun 15, 2000 at 03:25:46PM -0400, Peter S Galbraith wrote:
> The packaging manual (section 8.7) says:
> 
>  Build-Depends, Build-Conflicts 
>     The Build-Depends and Build-Conflicts fields apply to the
>     targets build, binary, binary-arch and binary-indep.
> 
> I took this to mean that `Build-Depends' are the requirements for
> all of targets build, binary, binary-arch and binary-indep
> inclusively.  If something is needed only in binary-arch or in
> binary-indep, then it gets added to the `Build-Depends' line.
>
> Since porters call binary-arch, they get this line with all the
> cruft needed for binary-indep as well.

Note that the section you quote also says:

     Their semantics is that the dependencies and conflicts they define
     must be satisfied (as defined earlier for binary packages), when one
     of the targets in `debian/rules' that the particular field applies to
     is invoked.

It was not the intention that this section be read as "Build-Depends
applies to binary-indep, I need foo in binary-indep, hence I need
to specify foo in Build-Depends".  Rather it was meant to be read
as "Build-Depends applies to binary-indep, so I need to have the
packages listed in Build-Depends installed when I run binary-indep".
The requirements are written so that they constrain the user of
debian/rules, not its writer (who has certain freedoms of choice here).

It may be enlightening to know that there originally was a field called
"Build-Depends-Arch" so the field set was symmetric, and Build-Depends
was supposed to list the common dependencies of the arch-any and arch-all
packages.  The -Arch field was dropped from the proposal during the
discussion on the grounds that it would not be used in practice.

> I'll take people's word for it, but I still can't decipher it the
> same way you all can. Perhaps it's just me.

HTH :-)

-- 
%%% Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho % gaia@iki.fi % http://www.iki.fi/gaia/ %%%