Bug#991082: gir1.2-gtd-1.0 has empty Depends

[Andreas Henriksson]

Hello Adrian Bunk,

On Tue, Jul 13, 2021 at 09:35:24PM +0300, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> Package: gir1.2-gtd-1.0
> Version: 3.28.1-2
> Severity: serious
> 
> ${gir:Depends} needs "dh --with gir" in debian/rules.

Sure, why not.... it looks like a possible oversight and could be added
to the packaging at some point.

> 
> Something might still go wrong after that,
> when trying it did not generate dependencies
> on any library:
>  Depends: gir1.2-glib-2.0, gir1.2-gtk-3.0 (>= 3.19.5)

There is no traditional shared object to depend on....

The files that are being introspected (a) are part of the main program
executable (b) as can be seen in src/meson.build.

(a):
https://sources.debian.org/src/gnome-todo/3.28.1-6/src/meson.build/#L211
(b):
https://sources.debian.org/src/gnome-todo/3.28.1-6/src/meson.build/#L43


The easiest way to "solve" this would likely be to just set the
introspection build option (c) to false and drop the gir1.2-gtd-1.0
package as it has no reverse dependencies.

(c):
https://sources.debian.org/src/gnome-todo/3.28.1-6/meson_options.txt/#L11

I'm not sure which actual problem that solves though. Do you have
a particular use-case that's affected by this?

If this is only a theoretical correctness discussion, then I don't think
it deserves any attention before the release (or even future point
releases). I fear that if pushing through the suggested "solution",
next you'll find out that libgnome-todo-dev doesn't depend on
any shared object package either... then start filing bug reports
about libnome-todo lacking a sover in the name, not containing
a shared object, etc.... Is there anything that's actually breaking
in the real world caused by anything discussed in this bug report?

(Note libgnome-todo-dev has no rdeps either, and the content of
libgnome-todo could likely just be folded into the gnome-todo
binary package... and then why not merge gnome-todo-common as well
to really simplify the packaging making this a simple single-
binary package..... OTOH changes like that are likely better done
during the next development cycle... and by someone who knows
what the future direction of gnome-todo might be, but feel free
to send a merge-request!)


Regards,
Andreas Henriksson