NAME

       Edos-builddebcheck - Check satisfiability of Debian package build-dependencies

SYNOPSIS

       edos-builddebcheck [option] ... Packagefile Sourcepackagefile

DESCRIPTION

       edos-builddebcheck  reads  a set of Debian package descriptions from the file Packagefile,
       each of which is in the format of deb-control(5), and a set of source package descriptions
       from  the file Sourcepackagefile. All packages described in the file Packagefile must have
       the same value of their Architecture (if it is different from all).

       For instance, the Packages and Sources files as found on a Debian mirror server, or in the
       directory /var/lib/apt/lists/ of a Debian system, are suitable as input files.

       edos-builddebcheck  verifies  for  every  of  the source packages (from Sourcepackagefile)
       whether  its  build-dependencies,  build-indep-dependencies  and  build-conflicts  can  be
       satisfied  from  the  binary  packages  provided in Packagefile. Only build-relations that
       apply to the architecture (see below on how the architecture is determined) are taken into
       account.

       Note  that  this  is  not the same thing as checking whether a distribution can be rebuild
       from scratch, for several reasons:

       1.  No actual compilation is taking place, this  tool  only  does  a  static  analysis  of
       package relationships.

       2.   The  binary packages in Packages are not necessarily those that are the result of the
       compilation of the source packages in Sourcepackagefile.

       3. We do not check for cycles. For instance, suppose that we have source packages a and  b
       both generating one binary package of respectively the same name, and that a build-depends
       on b and b build-depends on a. Then we can not rebuild the set of  packages  from  scratch
       because  of  the  cycle.  However,  if we already have binary packages a and b then we can
       recompile both of them. Consequently, edos-builddebcheck will not report an error in  this
       case.

       4.  The  underlying  logical  machine  does a complete analysis of alternatives, and might
       report satisfiability of constraints in case actual  tools  (like  apt)  fail  to  find  a
       solution.

       Build-essential packages are ignored in unversioned build-dependencies.  The (architecture
       dependant) list of build-essential packages is read from the configuration file.  If  that
       file is not available than an architecture independent default value is used.

OPTIONS

       -a, --architecture architecture
              Check  for  compilation on architecture. Usually it is not necessary to specify the
              architecture since it can be derived from the Packages file.

       -be, --binexplain
              Add all explanations why  build-dependencies  are  not  satisfiable.  Without  that
              option  some  of these explanations may be missing from the output in case a source
              package build-depends on a binary package that exists in Packagefile file but  that
              edos-debchecks finds not to be installable inside Packagefile.

FILES

       /etc/edos-builddebcheck.conf
              Configuration file for edos-builddebcheck

AUTHOR

       Edos-builddebcheck  has  been  written  by  Stefano  Zacchiroli <zack@debian.org> and Ralf
       Treinen <treinen@debian.org>. It heavily relies on edos-debcheck which has been written by
       Jerome Vouillon for the EDOS project.

SEE ALSO

       deb-control(5),edos-debcheck(1)