1 Debhelper v2 is a major new revision of debhelper. Currently, v2 is still
2 being worked on, and will change in drastic ways without notice. To keep
3 this from breaking packages, debhelper will continue to operate in v1
4 compatability mode by default.
6 To enable debhelper v2 features (do this with *caution*), set DH_COMPAT=2
7 Here are the changes I'm planning to make to debhelper for v2, based on
8 prior discussion on debian-devel.
10 Items marked with a + are done. All others will happen as soon as I can code
13 * Standardize on the name used for the temporary build directory of a
14 package. Currently it's debian/tmp/ for the first package and
15 debian/<package>/ for other packages of a multi-binary package. I've
16 decided after much agonizing to to use debian/<package>. The main thing this
17 has going for it is it means lots of multi-binary packages need only small
18 alterations, since they already use debian/<package> for making most of
19 thier .deb's anyway. I eliminated the other ideas for these reasons:
20 - debian/tmp/<package>: debian/tmp already has history behind it,
21 changing how it's used would be confusing.
22 - debian/build/<package>: confusing (is the code compiled there?)
23 - debian/tmp-<package>, debian/package-<tmp>: too long, little gain
25 * dh_installmanpages will be made into a non-DWIM program, so you'll have to
26 specify all man pages to install and possibly where to put them. This may
28 dh_installmanpages -x xterm.1 xfoo.1 xbar.man
29 dh_installmanpages --section=8 su.man
30 Ok, there's a _little_ DWIM left in there, it'll be smart enough to munge
31 the .man filenames properly. It'll probably just assume all man pages have
32 an extention, and delete that extentation, and add the correct one.
34 * dh_movefiles will use a name other than debian/<package>.files for the
35 list of what to move, because it can't use debian/files for the first
36 package, since that file is already used elsewhere. It'll use
39 * dh_movefiles should delete empty directories after it's moved all files
42 * debian/README will be installed as /usr/doc/<package>/README in native
43 packages, and as README.Debian in non-native packages. This is consistent
44 with the handing of debian/TODO and debian/changelog. (#34628)
46 * There will be no change to the names of debhelper config files used, I've
47 decided against debian/<package>/* and the like, because although those
48 subdirs do work, they're not allowed by the packaging manual, and they'd
49 make source unpacking by hand a lot harder. I will leave these files
50 completly as they are now. However, I will remove most of the language
51 documenting that debian/<foo> works, and will deprecate that usage.
52 debian/<package>.<foo> will be preferred even in single binary packages.
54 * Every file in etc/ will be automatically be flagged as a conffile.
56 * Debhelper config files will support globbing via * and ?, when
57 appropriate. To turn this off and use those changarcters raw, just quote