Re: [Quilt-dev] [PATCH] Remember location of patches and series file

[Raphael Hertzog]

On Thu, 17 Dec 2009, Jean Delvare wrote:
> So you might lose required data.
> 
> BTW, there is a debian directory in the quilt package itself. If you
> blast it when unpacking it, what is it good for? Can't we get rid of
> it?

Well, some upstream like to have some (basic) debian packaging integrated
(so that they can build test debs and provide them on their website) but
it tends to get out of sync with the official debian package quickly and
it can become problematic over time.

So the general advice is to not put the debian packaging inside the
upstream sources.

For me you can remove the debian directory yes. 

> But this is not what I was talking about. I was referring to the
> relativize_path() function, which was added for the following reason,
> quoting the debian bug:
> 
> "The reason why
> relativize_path is needed is that dpkg-source uses absolute paths when
> unpacking a 3.0 (quilt) package and tools like dch rename the top
> directory when changing the (upstream) version. Without relative paths
> quilt would then not find the patches dir and series file or, when
> the directory is copied, even use the original ones. I think that would
> be highly confusing to the user."
> 
> So, the _debian_ tools are using absolute paths where quilt expects
> relative paths, and you were trying to adjust quilt rather than
> fixing your own tools.

Ha, that quote, indeed I fully agree with you. quilt works with both
absolute and relative paths, the submitter converted them so that you can
copy the directory but I don't see why quilt should bother doing this
conversion. If quilt has this new feature, I'll use relative path where
appropriate, for now it didn't matter since it was not stored for later
usage.

> > Once I have those answers, I'll try to come up with an updated patch
> > (maybe not very soon, I'm a father since a few days and need some time to
> > get used to my new life).
> 
> Best wishes. Take your time and enjoy every minute :) See you in a
> few months.

Thanks, I'll try to do it sooner than that. :-)

Cheers,
-- 
Raphaël Hertzog