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

[Steve M. Robbins]

On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 02:19:07PM +0100, Wookey wrote:
> +++ Wookey [2012-05-22 11:04 +0100]:
> > Steve M. Robbins <steve at sumost.ca> wrote
> > 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.
> 
> That was wrong, or at least confused. 

I can certainly confirm that I was confused by multi-arch.  And
terrified to break something.  :-)


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

Uh, I think this line misguided you; "arch" was meant to be a variable,
not the literal string "arch".

What I wanted to say is that at build time, architecture $ARCH creates
a header gmp-$ARCH.h.  So there is currently a different set of files
in the -dev package for each architecture.  

I don't know how to create a "Multi-Arch Same" -dev package without
moving gmp-$ARCH.h somewhere else.  Maybe creating a new arch-specific
package just for the one file?  Ugh.  The other idea I had was to put
it into libgmp10, but that violates the rule against containing files
whose name does not vary with the SOVERSION (policy 8.2).  Any ideas?


> > >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.
> 
> If libgmp-dev:amd64 is installed you can't install libgmp-dev:armel in
> order to cross-build an armel package that build-depends on libgmp,
> unless libgmp-dev is M-A:same.
> 
> This affects quite a few packages.
> 
> I'm happy to help out with testing. 

I'll take you up on your offer, assuming we can solve the packaging
problem.

-Steve
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