[Debian-med-packaging] libqes ready for review/upload

[plessy at debian.org]

Le Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 10:27:53AM +1100, Kevin Murray a écrit :
> 
> Though it probably isn't necessary for libqes, I'd like to learn the best
> practices around symbol files. Is there a package you know of which create a
> symbols file in a way you consider best practice? Does this happen by hand, as
> a d/rules rule, or with some dh black magic? I am a little confused by the
> documentation regarding symbols files.

Hi Kevin,

the workflow is explained in the manual page of dpkg-gensymbol.  In brief, it
is ran towards the end of package building (usually through dh_makeshlibs), and
outputs a patch if the symbols file has to be updated.  Depending on the
importance of the update, it also interrupts the build.  Obviously, people who
have not studied the workflow in advance will face difficulties, and this makes
it a bit unfriendly to collaborative maintenance.  On the other hand, newcomers
are often discouraged to work on library packages.

You can see the symbols files installed on your system in /var/lib/dpkg/info.
See for instance /var/lib/dpkg/info/zlib1g\:amd64.symbols; thanks to this file,
a package compiled against the zlib may still be installable directly on older
systems, if the programs inside do not use functions introduced recently.
In contrast, if a package determines its dependancies at build time through
the older shlibs system (/var/lib/dpkg/info/zlib1g\:amd64.shlibs), it will
unconditionally depend on version 1:1.2.3.3.dfsg-1.

Have a nice day,

-- 
Charles Plessy
Debian Med packaging team,
http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-med
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan