Hi,

it would be great if <package>.install files would support some kind of
exclusion pattern, mirroring the -X option.

For example, given the following directory tree created by dh_auto_install:

    debian/tmp/usr/share/foo/bar/baz
    debian/tmp/usr/share/foo/bar/baz/qux.txt
    debian/tmp/usr/share/foo/bar/baz/qux.txt-SKIP
    debian/tmp/usr/share/foo/bar/baz/dont-install-me.so

If I needed to keep this tree in the final package, the easiest way I
guess would be a <package>.install with

    usr/share/foo    /usr/share/

However this would also copy the unwanted qux.txt-SKIP and
dont-install-me.so files.

What I do now is remove them in an execute_after_dh_auto_install.

I guess I could also override dh_install and add some -Xs, but this can
get unwieldy. Also, it would add a bit of confusion to have part of
dh_install's runtime configuration in d/rules, and the other in a
<package>.install.

If <package>.install files would support exclusion patterns, then this
would be really easy to do. Something like:

    usr/share/foo    /usr/share
    !usr/share/foo/bar/baz/qux.txt-SKIP
    !usr/share/foo/bar/baz/dont-install-me.so

To be clear, this is just about introducing a pattern. The logic should
of course be the same as for -X.

Best,
Christian