[maemo-developers] Optional build dependencies (e.g. for fremantle)

[From: Jeremiah Foster]

On Mar 17, 2009, at 8:48 PM, Till Harbaum / Lists wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Andrew (who is not subscribed to this list) suggested the following:
>
>> Guess the answer is "yes, but only if the autobuilder satisfies the
>> published deps (if it can)". You might be able to do some sort of
>>
>> Build-Depends: would-like-to-have-pkg1|harmless-pkg2,
>>    would-like-to-have-pkg2|harmless-pkg2, ...
>>
>> hack to keep autobuilders happy and building the package in a  
>> maximally
>> useful fashion on as many platforms as you can with the same  
>> source, but
>> this may be considered harmful.
>
> I'll give it a try.

'Harmless' packages can be considered as 'suggests' in the Depends:  
line. The Build-Depends field is used when you _require_ a package at  
build time. Also, note that the syntax is wrong in the Build-Depends  
line.

I would like to stress that blindly hacking on the control file might  
lead to unpleasant side-effects, not to mention many hours of wasted  
effort. Refer to the New Maintainers Guide to save yourself some time;

http://www.debian.org/doc/maint-guide/ch-dreq.en.html#s-control

Regards,

Jeremiah