CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c++ubuntudebianpackaging
Necktwi
Necktwi

Reputation: 2625

What is changelog.Debian.gz file during debian packaging?

while packaging I encountered following error

dh_builddeb
dpkg-deb: building package `remotedevicecontroller' in `../remotedevicecontroller_1.0-1_i386.deb'.
 dpkg-source -b remotedevicecontroller-1.0
dpkg-source: info: using source format `3.0 (quilt)'
dpkg-source: error: unwanted binary file: debian/remotedevicecontroller/usr/share/doc/remotedevicecontroller/changelog.Debian.gz
dpkg-source: error: detected 1 unwanted binary file (add it in debian/source/include-binaries to allow its inclusion).
dpkg-buildpackage: error: dpkg-source -b remotedevicecontroller-1.0 gave error exit status 29

why is the file being created by debian-helper and why is it again asking to include it in some other directory?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2224

Answers (1)

diogovk
diogovk

Reputation: 2228

When packing in debian, inside your project directory there's a directory named debian, which is where we keep files regarding instructions of how to pack your software, as well as relations with other packages, etc. We can call it you package control files. Among them, there's one called changelog, which looks like this:

mypackage (version-revision) unstable; urgency=low

  * Changelog messages

 -- Your Name <[email protected]>  Mon, 13 Aug 2012 14:09:01 -0300
 (...)

This file is used by the packaging software (dpkg-buildpackage) to know the name and version of your package. It also has info like the mantainer, changelogs, etc. After you build the package and install it, this file will be located at /usr/share/doc/mypackage/changelog.Debian.gz compressed in gzip format. You can check its contents by decompressing it, or using the zcat command.

Now, the problem you're having is that this file, once compressed, is considered a binary, and only binaries added in the debian/source/include-binaries are allowed to be in the source package, which is built with dpkg-source.

To solve your problem, you probably want to remove the file changelog.Debian.gz from your source package, since it will be replaced with the changelog file inside the debian folder anyways. If you're "repacking" something, and you think there might be updated changelog information in that file that you want to keep, you should compare it with the information that you have in your debian/changelog.

Edits:

*Typo: remove (not remote)

*Some clarifications

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions