Chapter 4. Source packages

25

The

binary

targets must be invoked as root.

14

clean

This must undo any effects that the

build

and

binary

targets may have had, except

that it should leave alone any output files created in the parent directory by a run of a

binary

target.

If a

build

file is touched at the end of the

build

target, as suggested above, it should be

removed as the first action that

clean

performs, so that running

build

again after an

interrupted

clean

doesn't think that everything is already done.

The

clean

target may need to be invoked as root if

binary

has been invoked since the

last

clean

, or if

build

has been invoked as root (since

build

may create directories, for

example).

get orig source

(optional) This target fetches the most recent version of the original

source package from a canonical archive site (via FTP or WWW, for example), does any

necessary rearrangement to turn it into the original source tar file format described below,

and leaves it in the current directory.

This target may be invoked in any directory, and should take care to clean up any tem 

porary files it may have left.

This target is optional, but providing it if possible is a good idea.

The

build

,

binary

and

clean

targets must be invoked with the current directory being the

package's top level directory.

Additional targets may exist in

debian/rules

, either as published or undocumented inter 

faces or for the package's internal use.

The architectures we build on and build for are determined by

make

variables using the utility

dpkg architecture

. You can determine the Debian architecture and the GNU style archi 

tecture specification string for the build machine (the machine type we are building on) as well

as for the host machine (the machine type we are building for). Here is a list of supported

make

variables:

DEB_*_ARCH

(the Debian architecture)

DEB_*_GNU_TYPE

(the GNU style architecture specification string)

DEB_*_GNU_CPU

(the CPU part of

DEB_*_GNU_TYPE

)

DEB_*_GNU_SYSTEM

(the System part of

DEB_*_GNU_TYPE

)

where

*

is either

BUILD

for specification of the build machine or

HOST

for specification of the

host machine.

Backward compatibility can be provided in the rules file by setting the needed variables to

suitable default values; please refer to the documentation of

dpkg architecture

for details.

It is important to understand that the

DEB_*_ARCH

string only determines which Debian archi 

tecture we are building on or for. It should not be used to get the CPU or system information;

the GNU style variables should be used for that.

14

The

fakeroot

package often allows one to build a package correctly even without being root.