README-DEV

This document describes an approach applied to packaging Expat for build2. In
particular, this understanding will be useful when upgrading to a new upstream
version.

The upstream package contains the libexpat C library, its usage examples and
tests, and xmlwf utility. Currently, we only package the library (see
libexpat/README-DEV for details).

We add the upstream package as a git submodule and symlink the required files
and subdirectories into the build2 package subdirectories. Then, when required,
we "overlay" the upstream with our own headers, placing them into the library
directory.

Note that symlinking upstream submodule subdirectories into a build2 package
subdirectory results in creating intermediate build files (.d, .o, etc) inside
upstream directory while building the package in source tree. That's why we
need to make sure that packages do not share upstream source files via
subdirectory symlinks, not to also share the related intermediate files. If
several packages need to compile the same upstream source file, then only one
of them can symlink it via the parent directory while others must symlink it
directly. We also add the `ignore = untracked` configuration option into
.gitmodules to make sure that git ignores the intermediate build files under
upstream/ subdirectory.

The upstream package can be configured to contain a specific feature set. We
reproduce the union of features configured for the upstream source package in
Debian and Fedora distributions. The configuration options defining these sets
are specified in the Debian's rules and Fedora's RPM .spec files. These files
can be obtained as follows:

$ wget http://deb.debian.org/debian/pool/main/e/expat/expat_2.6.3-1.debian.tar.xz
$ tar xf expat_2.6.3-1.debian.tar.xz debian/rules

$ wget https://kojipkgs.fedoraproject.org/packages/expat/2.6.3/1.fc42/src/expat-2.6.3-1.fc42.src.rpm
$ rpm2cpio expat-2.6.3-1.fc42.src.rpm | cpio -civ '*.spec'

As a side note, on Debian and Fedora the source, libraries, and headers are
packaged as follows:

                src   libraries headers
Debian/Ubuntu:  expat libexpat1 libexpat1-dev
Fedora/RHEL:    expat expat     expat-devel

Search for the Debian and Fedora packages at https://packages.debian.org/search
and https://apps.fedoraproject.org/packages/.

Both distributions use the default feature set and specify no additional
configuration options for the configure script.

Normally, when packaging a project, we need to replace some auto-generated
headers with our own implementations and deduce the source files and
compilation/linking options. For Expat we can rely for that on configure.ac,
expat_config.h.cmake and CMakeLists.txt. In practice, however, that can be
uneasy and error prone, so you may also need to see the actual compiler and
linker command lines in the build log. If that's the case, you can
configure/build the upstream package on the platform of interest running the
following commands in the upstream project root directory.

On POSIX and for MinGW GCC:

$ cd expat
$ ./buildconf.sh
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ ../configure >build.log 2>&1
$ make VERBOSE=1 >>build.log 2>&1

For MSVC:

> cd expat
> mkdir build
> cd build
> cmake -DCMAKE_VERBOSE_MAKEFILE:BOOL=ON .. >build.log
> cmake --build . >>build.log 2>&1

See upstream/expat/{README.md,CMake.README,win32/README.txt} for details.

When the packaging is complete, build all the project packages in source tree
and make sure that no Expat headers are included from the system, running the
following command from the project root:

$ grep -a -e '/usr/include/expat.*' `find . -type f -name '*.d'`