NAME

       dh_elpa - install emacs lisp packages into package build directories

SYNOPSIS

       dh_elpa [debhelper options]  [pkg-file]

DESCRIPTION

       dh_elpa is a debhelper program that is responsible for installing elpa style emacs lisp
       packages into package build directories.

       dh_elpa will attempt to run ERT and Buttercup test suites using dh_elpa_test(1) if the
       debhelper compat level is 10 or higher.  To disable this behaviour, or tweak it if it is
       failing to run the tests as they should be run, set environment variables in debian/rules
       as detailed in dh_elpa_test(1).

FILES

       debian/package.elpa
           List of files to be installed into package as an elpa package.

OPTIONS

       --byte-compile, --no-byte-compile
           Enable (default) or disable byte compilation of installed emacs lisp files.  Disabling
           byte compilation changes the destination directory to one that is found by the emacs
           package system.

       --fix-autoload-date, --no--fix-autoload-date
           Enable (default) or disable munging the dates in Emacs generated autoload files to
           match debian/changelog.

SUBSTVARS

       dh_elpa currently defines three substvars (cf. deb-substvars(5)) that can be used in
       debian/control

       ${misc:Depends}
           These are dependencies needed by every dh_elpa based package.

       ${elpa:Depends}
           These are dependencies on other ELPA packages as given in the Package-Requires: line
           of the package's main Emacs Lisp file.

           Note that Emacs Lisp dependencies packaged outside the elpa-* dpkg namespace must be
           specified manually.  For example, the s.el library is provided by the binary package
           s-el.  If dh_elpa adds dependency elpa-x where x is an Emacs Lisp binary package
           outside the elpa-* namespace, please file a bug against dh_elpa to have an exclusion
           added.

EXAMPLES

       Here is an example of using the helper in a dh(1) style debian/rules

           #!/usr/bin/make -f
           %:
               dh $@ --with elpa

       Here is an example of a binary package stanza using dh_elpa generated substvars

           Package: elpa-hello
           Architecture: all
           Depends: ${misc:Depends}, ${elpa:Depends}
           Description: Emacs addon to say hello
            The Emacs editor addon likes to wave and say hello.

HINTS

   Specifying the package version
       If dh_elpa can't determine the package version by looking at *.el files (usually because
       upstream has failed to include the proper headers or *-pkg.el file), it will fallback to
       the DEB_UPSTREAM_VERSION and DEB_VERSION_UPSTREAM environment variables.  An easy way to
       set one of these based on your latest Debian changelog entry is just to prepend the
       following to your rules file:

           include /usr/share/dpkg/pkg-info.mk
           export DEB_VERSION_UPSTREAM

       Certain Debian upstream version strings cannot be translated into version strings Emacs
       will accept (see the docstring for the Emacs function `version-to-list' for details).
       dh_elpa will error out if the version cannot be translated.  You should resort to patching
       in a Package-Version header or adding a *-pkg.el file.