Packaging python3-*-devel subpackages
Hello Pythonistats and packaging folks.
Tomáš (CCed) approached me today with an interesting question.
A Python package he is packaging into RPM (python3-rapidfuzz) installs some
development files (.h and .pxd).
Tomáš queried upstream about those files to figure out if they should be
installed or if they are only needed to build the package itself. Upstream
responded:
rapidfuzz.h and __init__.pxd provide a capi for rapidfuzz, which
allows users
to write their own similarity metrics in C/C++/Cython, which can be called by
rapidfuzz in a more performant way through this C-API.
For this reason the header file should be part of the installation as well.
OK, we want to ship them. Our packaging guidelines however say:
https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/packaging-guidelines/#_devel_packages
Specifically, -devel packages must be used to contain files which
are
intended solely for development or needed only at build-time. This is done to
minimize the install footprint for users. There are some types of files which
almost always belong in a -devel package:
- Header files...
So from our guidelines perspective, the files would go to
python3-rapidfuzz-devel. The way we packaged Python in 201x, this would be the
end of it.
However, in this decade with automatic Python BuildRequires, we could easily
end up in this situation:
1. a Python package lists rapidfuzz as a build requirement
2. %pyproject_buildrequires generates a dependency on python3dist(rapidfuzz)
3. only python3-rapidfuzz is pulled
4. %build wants to use rapidfuzz.h
5. packager needs to manually BuildRequire python3-rapidfuzz-devel
To avoid (5), my suggestion was to add the following requirement to
python3-rapidfuzz:
Requires: (python3-rapidfuzz-devel%{?_isa} =
%{?epoch:%{epoch}:}%{version}-%{release} if python3-devel)
That way, application packages that pull in pytohn3-rapidfuzz as a runtime
dependency won't get it (we are minimizing the install footprint for users),
but users who build stuff (including RPM packages) will get it (we make
automatically generated dependencies work as intended).
(Of course, users who have python3-devel installed for reasons other than
rapidfuxx will still get the files, but the assumption here is that users who
install -devel packages intent to /generally/ build stuff.)
Is that a good suggestion? And if so, should it be a general recommendation for
such cases?
--
Miro Hrončok
--
Phone: +420777974800
IRC: mhroncok