As a follow-up to my last post where I discussed common Python packaging related errors, I thought it would be worth to have a separate post on how to decide on build-depends for Python (and Python3) packages.
The python ecosystem has a lot of packages built around supporting multiple versions of python (really python3 now) in parallel. I’m going to limit this post to packages you might need to build-depend on directly.
Python (2)
Since Jessie (Debian 8), python2.7 has been the only supported python version. For development of Stretch and backports to Jessie there is no need to worry about multiple python versions. As a result, several ‘all’ packages are (and will continue to be) equivalent to their non-‘all’ counterparts. We well continue to provide the ‘all’ packages for backward compatibility, but they aren’t really needed any more.
python (or python-all)
This is the package to build-depend on if your package is pure Python (no C extensions) and does not for some other reason need access to the Python header files (there are a handful of packages this latter caveat applies to, if you don’t know if it applies to your package, it almost certainly doesn’t).
You should also build-depend on dh-python. It was originally shipped as part of the python package (and there is still an old version provided), but to get the most current code with new bug fixes and features, build-depend on dh-python.
python-dev (or python-all-dev)
If your package contains compiled C or C++ extensions, this package either provides or depends on the packages that provide all the header files you need.
Do not also build-depend on python. python-dev depends on it and it is just an unneeded redundancy.
python-dbg (or python-all-dbg)
Add this if you build a -dbg package (not needed for -dbgsym).
Other python packages
There is not, AFAICT, any reason to build-dep on any of the other packages provided (e.g. libpython-dev). It is common to see things like python-all, python, python-dev, libpython-dev in build-depends. This could be simplified just to python-all-dev since it will pull the rest in.
Python3
Build-depends selection for Python 3 is generally similar, except that we continue to want to be able to support multiple python3 versions (as we currently support python3.4 and python3.5). There are a few differences:
All or not -all
Python3 transitions are much easier when C extensions are compiled for all supported versions. In many cases all that’s needed if you use pybuild is to build-depend on python3-all-dev. While this is preferred, in many cases this would be technically challenging and not worth the trouble. This is mostly true for python3 based applications.
Python3-all is mostly useful for running test suites against all supported python3 versions.
Transitions
As mentioned in the python section above, build-depends on python3-{all-}dev is generally only needed for compiled C extensions. For python3 these are also the packages that need to be rebuilt for a transition. Please avoid -dev build-depends whenever possible for non-compiled packages. Please keep your packages that do need rebuilding binNMU safe.
Transitions happen in three stages:
- A new python3 version is added to supported python3 versions and packages that need rebuilding due to compiled code and that support multiple versions are binNMUed to add support for the new version.
- The default python3 is changed to be the new version and packages that only support a single python3 version are rebuilt.
- The old python3 version is dropped from supported versions and packages will multiple-version support are binNMUed to remove support for the dropped version.
This may seem complex (OK, it is a bit), but it enables a seamless transition for packages with multi-version support since they always support the default version. For packages that only support a single version there is an inevitable period when they go uninstallable once the default version has changed and until they can be rebuilt with the new default.
Specific version requirements
Please don’t build-depend against specific python3 versions. Those don’t show up in the transition tracker. Use X-Python3-Version (see python policy for details) to specify the version you need.
Summary
Please check your packages and only build-depend on the -dev packages when you need it. Check for redundancy and remove it. Try and build for all python3 versions. Don’t build-depend on specific python3 versions.