Bug#422207: unixodbc-dev: install odbc_config

[Peter Eisentraut]

Package: unixodbc-dev
Version: 2.2.11-13
Severity: wishlist
Tags: patch

Please install the program odbc_config in the package unixodbc-dev. The
new psqlodbc driver wants this to build.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-4-k7 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=***@euro, LC_CTYPE=***@euro (charmap=ISO-8859-15)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages unixodbc-dev depends on:
ii libltdl3-dev 1.5.22-4 A system independent dlopen wrappe
ii libodbcinstq1c2 2.2.11-13 Qt-based ODBC configuration librar
ii odbcinst1debian1 2.2.11-13 Support library and helper program
ii unixodbc 2.2.11-13 ODBC tools libraries

unixodbc-dev recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information

[Steve Langasek]

Post by Peter Eisentraut
Package: unixodbc-dev
Version: 2.2.11-13
Severity: wishlist
Tags: patch
Please install the program odbc_config in the package unixodbc-dev. The
new psqlodbc driver wants this to build.

So, I'm philosophically opposed to the introduction of new per-library
"-config" helpers, because of how often they get things wrong. Including
odbc_config in this case:

$ ./debian/tmp/usr/bin/odbc_config --static-libs
/usr/lib/libodbc.a
$

That's wrong, a) there's no reason to output the /usr/lib instead of just
outputting -lodbc, and b) it's missing references to -lltdl and -lpthread

$ ./debian/tmp/usr/bin/odbc_config --libtool-libs
/usr/lib/libodbc.la
$

This is an abstraction violation, nothing should be referencing the .la file
directly and I will not ship anything in a Debian package I maintain that
encourages such misuse of libtool internals.

I'll try to find some time to talk to upstream about this, and encourage
them to ship a pkg-config .pc file instead (which I would then encourage
psqlodbc upstream to give preference to over odbc_config). I'm not sure if
I would agree to ship odbc_config in the meantime if it were fixed to not
give wrong output, I'll have to think about that.

Cheers,