On Sun, Nov 28, 2004 at 07:17:34PM +0100, Simon Richter wrote: > >> "The -dev package should depend on all -dev packages for libraries > >> that the library package depends upon..."
> >>But this is actually a very strict requirement (since you are pulling in > >>many -dev packages you don't even know through dependecies). And it > >>generates quite long Depends: list for -dev packages. From what I see, > >>few -dev packages follow this practice. For example, our scim-dev > >>package don't do this. > The point behind this requirement is that library header files include > library header files from other libraries, and so depend functionally on > the presence of these header files, even if this dependency may not be > required for the part of the API the application is using. Thus, the > application's build-dependencies would be too broad (since it doesn't > use the library, why should it depend on it), but nevertheless > neccessary since the unneeded parts in the header file would still fail > to compile. The only packages that can be omitted here are > build-essential packages. > In essence, this means that if your library depends on another library > and this is reflected in the header files (which it obviously is), your > -dev package needs to depend on the other library's -dev package. In practice, I think it's relatively uncommon for headers from one library to require headers from other dependency libraries, which is why such -dev interdependencies are not as common as they might be. -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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