[Debian-med-packaging] Bug#897785: Now gcc-8 errors caused by non-fitting symbols file became serious

[Andreas Tille]

Hi,

since gcc-8 now has entered sid the previously files bugs where a
package fails with gcc-8 became serious and thus we should do something
about it.  All libbpp* packages are affected due to the fact that
symbols files are not really fitting.  I think the bug log #897794[1] is
a good reading to learn what can be done.  I admit I'm personally
undecided whether the work to fix the existing symbols file to work with
gcc-7 (as currently) *and* gcc-8 (with buster) is worth the effort.  I
think a similarly valid strategy would be to regenerate the symbols
files from scratch[2] and accept the fact that it will not work with
gcc-7 any more.  From my point of view that's not a real problem.  It
only hits for backports and an easy fix for this is to simply remove
the symbols file when backporting.  Since symbols files are specifically
useful when upgrading to *new* versions to learn about ABI breaks which
will not happen when backporting I regard creating the symbols file from
scratch a valid strategy to fix those bugs if it turns out that patching
the files makes a lot of effort.

Kind regards

       Andreas.

[1] https://bugs.debian.org/897794
[2] https://wiki.debian.org/UsingSymbolsFiles

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