[Python-modules-team] Bug#745690: sphinx-common: dh_sphinxdoc always insists on documentation

[Aaron M. Ucko]

Package: sphinx-common
Version: 1.2.2+dfsg-1
Severity: normal

In the course of tracking build failures affecting new packages, I've
found one common problem to be placing documentation in a separate
architecture-independent package (as Policy encourages) but
unconditionally invoking dh --with sphinxdoc, which fails the build
when it finds no Sphinx documentation to process:

     dh_sphinxdoc -a
  dh_sphinxdoc: Sphinx documentation not found
  make: *** [binary-arch] Error 2

This failure mode has come up a lot; I've already reported #663985,
#670955, #718231, #719176, #721779, #721780, and #738735, and now see
that django-classy-tags has run into the same issue (to be reported
shortly).

I do see the value in having a sanity check, but note that other dh_
commands are typically safe to run if they have nothing to do.  Could
you please consider either downgrading this error to a warning or
disabling it altogether, at least when invoked with -a?

Thanks!

-- System Information:
Debian Release: jessie/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable'), (300, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 3.13-1-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages sphinx-common depends on:
ii  libjs-sphinxdoc  1.2.2+dfsg-1

Versions of packages sphinx-common recommends:
ii  python-sphinx   1.2.2+dfsg-1
ii  python3-sphinx  1.2.2+dfsg-1

sphinx-common suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information