Re: Modern packaging for postgis

Bas,

On 10/09/2016 12:02 AM, Sebastiaan Couwenberg wrote:
> I've prepared a branch with changes to modernize the postgis packaging:
>
>  https://anonscm.debian.org/cgit/pkg-grass/postgis.git/log/?h=modern-packaging

Thanks for bringing this up again. Looks good from a first glance.
However, I just moved to a new home and am unlikely to look at it in
more detail within the next few days.

I gave this branch a spin on the pgapt Jenkins build farm.

> The goal of these changes is to bring the postgis package in line with
> the other packages maintained within the Debian GIS team.

(As a side note, I'm still wondering if Debian GIS is the right team for
a PostgreSQL extension. But modernized packaging is a good thing in any
case.)

> The control files are restructured with cme while preserving the changes
> for PGDG. The separate lines for dependencies greatly increase
> readability and gives cleaner diffs as a bonus.

Good. Agreed.

> The rules file is switched to use the dh sequencer to not need explicit
> calls to the various dh_* utilities. This added dh_perl amongst others
> for which the substitution variable was added to the -scripts package.

I'm worried about backwards-compatibility, here.

At least the current build already failed building the source package
for wheezy, trusty and precise:

dpkg-source: error: syntax error in source/debian/control at line 27:
continued value line not in field
dpkg-buildpackage: error: dpkg-source -i -I --before-build source gave
error exit status 25


> I've verified that both binary-arch & binary-indep builds still work.
> And also verified the build in a cowbuilder chroot with the PGDG
> repository enabled, but I suspect that the Jenkins build environment may
> differ somewhat.

It's hardly the build environment, but rather the fact that the package
should build from the same sources on older Debian and Ubuntu releases.

> Is there some way to do experimental builds for PGDG which won't
> automatically be published?

Yes, please ask myon@debian.org for access to that Jenkins builder.

> I'd like to merge these changes as soon as possible to get them into
> stretch, but I'd like you to confirm that they cause any adverse effects
> for PGDG as they did the first time I implemented modernized packaging
> some time ago.

Thanks.

Kind Regards

Markus Wanner