[Bug 524148] Re: onboard has overactive dependencies

[Emmet Hikory]

If the decison is to hardcode the SONAMEs in the CDLL calls, then it
makes sense to drop my patch, and just add the correct library
dependencies to the package.  If there was a test suite, it may be
useful to reintroduce the dynamic detection.  I suspect that for
advanced hackers (not I) it would be possible to use the development
headers to generate compiled python bindings and set the right
dependencies at build time.  Another alternative would be to work with X
upstream to get generic python bindings, and then require them in
onboard.

The problem with retaining the debian/rules patch if the SONAMEs are
hardcoded in X11.py is that the package will silently break if there is
an ABI change in the libraries, because the binary package will appear
to have been updated correctly with a rebuild, but then will fail at
runtime.  With hardcoding, it would be good to put a different check in
build/onboard:: while keeping the build-dependencies.  Something like:

WRITE_TEST =[ -f /usr/lib/$(1) ];
CDLL_LIBS ?= ${shell grep CDLL Onboard/X11.py | cut -d\' -f2}
CDLL_TESTS ?= ${foreach lib,${CDLL_LIBS},${call WRITE_TEST,$(lib)}}

build/onboard::
        ${CDLL_TESTS}

    I believe this would interrupt the build if the correct libraries
were not present on the system, and in combination with build-
dependencies on libXi-dev and libX11-dev one would be able to verify
that the deisred libraries were the default libraries (or if not, have
warning that the code needed porting).  I haven't tested this, and it
ought be tested prior to upload, but something of this form would
provide primitive protection against runtime errors.

Regardless of the treatment of the debian/rules patch, the debian/watch
patch should be preserved (or modified if the launchpad download
locations change).

-- 
onboard has overactive dependencies
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/524148
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