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

[Wookey]

+++ Steve M. Robbins [2012-05-23 22:50 -0500]:
> Hello Julien,
> 
> On Wed, May 23, 2012 at 09:59:14AM +0200, Julien Cristau wrote:
> > On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 22:45:23 -0500, Steve M. Robbins wrote:
> > 
> > > > > 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".

Right, yes, I misunderstood.

> > > 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 think that's fine, as long as no two debian architectures have the
> > same value for $ARCH (or their gmp-$ARCH.h is the same).

> Yes, that is the case: each architecture has its own value of $ARCH.
> I'm going to have a closer look to be certain no other headers vary by
> architecture.

There are some scripts to check for illegal differences between archs:
http://people.debian.org/~jwilk/multi-arch/
http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/collab-qa/multi-arch/

(it's awkward to test locally unless you have the tech to build for
multiple architectures, so those run on the archive.)

> > > 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?
> > > 
> > "Multi-Arch: same" packages are allowed to (and often do) have different
> > file lists on each arch.  The restriction is that any file name that
> > *is* shared among architectures has the exact same contents.
> 
> Hey -- that's good to know!  If this is indeed the case, then I'll have a
> look at making gmp's -dev packages multi-arch same.
> 
> It would be nice if the wiki was more clear what is meant when it 
> says:
> 
>     If your -dev package contains headers which vary across
>     architectures then it cannot be marked as Multi-Arch: same until a
>     policy decision is made about architecture-dependant headers and
>     the toolchain is updated.
> 
> I interpreted "headers which vary" more strictly than Julien did.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll try to make it clearer.

Wookey
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