[Distutils] Low Level API for translating distutils/setuptools metatdata to Debian metadata

[Brian Sutherland]

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 08:35:16AM -0700, Andrew Straw wrote:
> Brian Sutherland wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I've just published a very small library that does three things so far:
> > 
> >     * Provides a mapping between python project names and Debian
> >       binary/source package names
> >     * Converts setuptools versions to Debian versions while maintaining
> >       sort order
> >     * Can introspect an .egg-info directory to figure out the Debian
> >       dependencies for use in the debian/control file. It can also
> >       handle/understand extras (I Hope!)
> > 
> > It's basically an attempt to find a common ground between all the
> > projects doing automated Python->Debian packaging. I have a feeling
> > everyone is re-implementing this code all the time.
> 
> The stdeb package certainly needs most of these things, so it would be
> nice to consolidate the implementation. It looks like there's some very
> useful stuff in van.pydeb along with good tests. I'll attempt to convert
> stdeb to use it. Do you have a public source code repository for
> van.pydeb in case I want to start making patches?

I added a link to the svn repository to the web page, and am willing to
accept patches!

> > And an example of direct use in a packaging situation with complex dependencies is here:
> > 
> >     http://svn.debian.org/viewsvn/pkg-zope/zope.component/trunk/debian/rules?view=markup
> 
> As an aside, now that I've been looking at debian/rules files made for
> debhelper 7 and python-support, that file looks bloated to my eye. (Of
> course, if you're targeting older Debians without dh7, there's not much
> you can do.) FWIW stdeb is growing dh7 support in the "dh7" branch. For
> example, stdeb just generated this debian/rules file, which is
> completely functional:
> 
> #!/usr/bin/make -f
> 
> # This file was automatically generated by stdeb 0.3+git+dh7 at
> # Thu, 28 May 2009 15:38:44 -0700
> 
> %:
>         dh $@
> 

Yes we were thinking of using something similar; i.e. an includable
makefile. But this does look very interesting, I will definitely
investigate.

But just to point it out, it's way beyond the scope of van.pydeb to
define the rules file, that's for things like stdeb to do.

-- 
Brian Sutherland