re bug 638959: gmp multiarch support - why not -dev too?

[Steve M. Robbins]

On Mon, May 21, 2012 at 05:23:28PM +0100, Wookey wrote:
> I just noticed that
> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=638959 was closed but
> only libgmp10 libgmpxx4ldbl were made Multi-Arch: same. The -dev part
> of the patch was missed out. 
> 
> What was the reason for this?

My understanding at the time was that you couldn't make -dev packages
multi-arch.  I believe I received some advice to this effect at the
time but I can't find it now.  

Even if this is not a general prohibition, the wiki [1] does say this:

    Although Debian policy currently doesn't allow -dev packages with
    headers which vary across architectures to be Multi-Arch: same,

and each -dev has its own architecture-dependent <gmp-arch.h> file.


> libgmp-dev is a build-dep of 75 packages, and because the build-arch
> version gets installed with the toolchain it is often not possible to
> install the host-arch version unless libgmp-dev is M-A: same. 

I don't understand the issue.

Regards,
-Steve

[1] http://wiki.debian.org/Multiarch/Implementation
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