Bug#942359: Please provide libfftw3-long3 on all platforms

[Julian Taylor]

On 15.10.19 08:47, Ole Streicher wrote:
> Package:libfftw3-long3
> Version: 3.3.8-2
> Severity: wishlist
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I have a package (cubature) that generates an include file (clencurt.h)
> with a small helper program during build. This helper program uses the
> "long double" version of libfftw (libfftw3-long3).
> 
> Unfortunately, libfftw3-long3 is only available on some architectures
> and is missing on armel, armhf, mipsel and some ports. It seems that
> these are the architectures where sizeof(long double) == sizeof(long),
> which make the a separate "long double" version redundant.
> 
> However, the missing "long double" version breaks programs that use the
> "long" version of the API. I could in principle rewrite the helper
> program to support both; however this requires a lot of renaming and is
> not really suitable for a Debian patch.
> 
> Therefore, I would ask to provide a "long double" version on all
> machines which support the "long double" C data type.
> 

This would require disabling the testsuite on these architectures as
with no real long doubles they will likely fail (which I think is the
original reason the package is not built, but I'd have to look it up).

Imo it is also dangerous to provide a long double numerical library on
platforms that do not really support it. You likely will just get wrong
results.

I think it would be better to just not build cubature on these platforms
depending on how significant the long double support is.
Have you engaged with upstream to check if they want to make long double
support optional?

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