Bug#962518: cegui-mk2 FTBFS on mipsel/mips64el: symbol differences

[Olek Wojnar]

Thanks for the bug report and both of your comments. The number of times
I've had to re-upload this package due to symbol issues is really getting
excessive, it seems.

On Tue, Jun 9, 2020 at 6:12 AM Adrian Bunk <bunk at debian.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 09, 2020 at 11:24:27AM +0200, Stephen Kitt wrote:
> > Le 09/06/2020 09:59, Adrian Bunk a écrit :
> > > https://buildd.debian.org/status/package.php?p=cegui-mk2
> > >
> > > ...
> > > dpkg-gensymbols: warning: some new symbols appeared in the symbols
> > > file: see diff output below
> > > dpkg-gensymbols: error: some symbols or patterns disappeared in the
> > > symbols file: see diff output below
> > > dpkg-gensymbols: warning: debian/libcegui-mk2-0.8.7/DEBIAN/symbols
> > > doesn't match completely debian/libcegui-mk2-0.8.7.symbols
> >
> > [...]
> >
> > > Fix:
> >
> > I wonder if the real fix shouldn't be for cegui-mk2 to stop exporting a
> pile
> > of Boost symbols...
>

I would love that. Any advice on a reasonably easy/straightforward way of
doing that? If it makes the long-term maintenance of this package easier
I'm very amenable to hearing any suggestions!


> I wonder if the real fix shouldn't be to stop providing symbols files
> for C++ libraries...
>
> Symbols files for C libraries are straightforward,
> symbols files for C++ libraries are a mess.
>

Ha! Truth. They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Here's an example. I wanted to include a symbols file to help with
fine-grained dependency resolution. You know, the reason we have those
files. Trying to do my part to keep our whole ecosystem working smoothly.
But this has been so much of a headache (both with this package and a
couple other C++ libraries I maintain) that I'm considering just erasing
all the symbols files and being done with it.

Any advice on this? I really want to do what's "right" and what's best for
this package and the greater Debian infrastructure but I wonder if
insisting on shipping symbols files is actually doing more harm than good.
(e.g. I'm sure the buildds don't appreciate the extra load...)

-Olek