** Description changed:
The ELF package note metadata introduced in dpkg 1.22.6ubuntu11 (refined
in 1.22.6ubuntu14) can cause this failure:
```
gcc fatal error: environment variable ‘DEB_HOST_ARCH’ not defined
```
This happens when the `-specs=/usr/share/dpkg/elf-package-
metadata.specs` parameter is set but the needed environment variables
are not set. Cases:
1. Only the LDFLAGS is queried from dpkg-buildflags. Affected source
packages builds: python3.12, openjdk-21, cdbs (causing dvbstreamer and
rp-pppoe fail to build)
2. autopkgtests
3. debugging a crash of an application build with the -spec parameter
4. People like to iteratively continue building the software in the
build dir while hacking on the package and then have no environment
variable set.
This approach is too fragile. An alternative approach would be to specify the
`--package-metadata` linker flag directly. The problem with that approach is
that the curly brackets and quotation marks need to be escaped. Example
failure: Building dpkg would add this parameter to the LDFLAGS:
```
-Wl,--package-metadata,{"type":"deb","os":"ubuntu","name":"dpkg","version":"1.22.6ubuntu15","architecture":"amd64"}
```
The following configure script call (non-relevant parameters deleted):
```
$ gcc
-Wl,--package-metadata,{type:deb,os:ubuntu,name:dpkg,version:1.22.6ubuntu15,architecture:amd64}
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find {type:deb: No such file or directory
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find os:ubuntu: No such file or directory
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find name:dpkg: No such file or directory
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find version:1.22.6ubuntu15: No such file or directory
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find architecture:amd64}: No such file or directory
```
Proposed solution: Add support for an `--escaped-package-metadata` parameter
to the linkers that takes an URL encoded (RFC 3986) parameter. Example:
```
-Wl,--encoded-package-metadata,%7B%22type%22:%22deb%22%2C%22os%22:%22ubuntu%22%2C%22name%22:%22dpkg%22%2C%22version%22:%221.22.6ubuntu15%22%2C%22architecture%22:%22amd64%22%7D
```
+
+ Solution (see comment #31)
+ ==========================
+
+ dpkg 1.22.11ubuntu1 stops passing the --specs option. It will be
+ replaced by
+
+ - dpkg-buildpackage setting ELF_PACKAGE_METADATA in the environment,
+ which gets picked up GCC and clang, and added as a linker option.
+
+ - the linkers ld.bfd, gold, mold and lld picking up ELF_PACKAGE_METADATA
+ if they don't see a package-metadata option.
+ This is committed, and will be uploaded later.
+
+ - dpkg-buildflags passing an option --encoded-package-metadata, which
+ can be safely passed.
+ This option has to go upstream first into the linkers, so that we
+ don't have API incompatible linker versions in the archive.
+
+ If the fix for the other packages in this report is the only Ubuntu delta,
+ it can be safely dropped.
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2071468
Title:
ELF package metadata failure: environment variable ‘DEB_HOST_ARCH’ not
defined
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