[Debian-med-packaging] Bug#1082901: libpcre2-dev: Mention natural libpcrecpp successor in Description

[Guillem Jover]

Package: libpcre2-dev
Version: 10.42-4
Severity: wishlist
X-Debbugs-Cc: libgoby-java at packages.debian.org, gpt at packages.debian.org, passwordmaker-cli at packages.debian.org

Hi!

I was recently in need of switching some C++ projects using libpcrecpp
from PCRE to PCRE2, when I realized the C++ library didn't exist anymore
in PCRE2, so started by using the C API. But then checked again and
noticed that the natural successor for the C++ library which had been
contributed by Google, would be now the RE2 library, which has a very
closed API and the diff then becomes very tiny.

  Debian (libre2-dev), Upstream (https://github.com/google/re2)

I think to help other unsuspecting users, it would be very helpful if
the libpcre2-dev package description could mention something along the
lines of:

  The libpcrecpp library is no longer provided by this package, but
  its natural successor is the libre2-dev package, both developed by
  Google.

I've CCed (or directly contacted upstream when the patch had already been
merged there) the few packages that did the switch already in Debian
using the C API, and where the patch seems a bit unwieldy compared to the
previous C++ API:

  https://sources.debian.org/src/vdr-plugin-live/3.1.3-3/debian/patches/pcre2.patch
  https://sources.debian.org/src/libgoby-java/3.3.1+dfsg2-11/debian/patches/using_pcre2.patch
  https://sources.debian.org/src/gpt/1.1-8/debian/patches/pcre2.patch
  https://sources.debian.org/src/passwordmaker-cli/1.5+dfsg-6/debian/patches/pcre2.patch

Thanks,
Guillem