When run the package reports

  Checking that apt-file is installed and has been configured...
  Error: apt-file is not available.
  Please install the 'apt-file' package and try again.

The package should at least 'Recommend' apt-file.

Hello Kristoffer,

Thank you for the bug report.  I tend to agree that a stronger
dependency is warranted, and personally m-d-h should just Depend on
apt-file.  In fact, Recommends used to be the relationship, but it was
changed in 2011:

I have moved devscripts and apt-file back to Recommends for the next
upload.  If someone feels strongly that this isn't appropriate, we can
discuss on the list.

Cheers,
tony

Le 18/10/2015 20:46, tony mancill a écrit :

The extra dependencies slow down the pbuilder build. I was surprised by
the missing dependency too, but on a second thought I realized it's
acceptable to hit the error once and install apt-file manually. The
error message is quite clear that's not terribly difficult to fix. On
the other hand the time spent installing the missing dependencies is
experienced by everyone and on every build.

An alternative would be to move mh_make to a separate binary package
(maven-helper-make?).

Emmanuel Bourg

Am 18.10.2015 um 20:46 schrieb tony mancill:
[...]

Hi tony,

not a real objection, but.. I think Ludovic was right to move apt-file
from Recommends to Suggests since it is only used by mh_make and mh_make
will never be used automatically. In fact it is just a helper tool to
create an
initial debian directory for Maven based packages and is not used for
anything else. mh_make even tells you to install apt-file, so I feel
that Suggests: is a good choice here and ensures that apt-file is not
pulled in needlessly.

Regards,

Markus

I thought about that too, but apt-file is tiny compared to the other
packages being installed.  The argument is certainly stronger for
devscripts, which pulls in a lot of r-deps.

Hmmm... it would be nice to separate the "make-time" (meaning, package
creation-time) tools from the build-time toolchain.  Do you think it's
reasonable to have something like a java-package-helper package that
contained the package make tools, regardless of whether they are for
ant, maven, gradle, etc.?

In any event, I'll revert my commit.  It sounds like there are more
reasons for Suggests.

Cheers,
tony

Le 18/10/2015 21:19, Markus Koschany a écrit :

I got another look at the dependencies involved, apt-file pulls just a
few Perl libraries, but devscripts drags a lot of stuff: python3, gnupg,
lintian, strace, wget, gcc and more. It probably explains why Ludovic
changed the relation.

Emmanuel Bourg

Le 18/10/2015 21:27, tony mancill a écrit :

That's a good idea, it would make the life of the newcomers easier.
Maybe not grouping the tools under the same package though, but instead
having a meta package depending on them.