autodep8(1)

💖 autodep8 — the DEP-8 test control file generator 💖

okay so welcome to autodep8(1), bestie. this is the lil glow-up generator that writes DEP-8 test control files for you so you don't have to, and honestly? it's giving ✨magic✨. let's get into it 🫶

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🌸 NAME 🌸

autodep8 — the DEP-8 test control file generator. that's the whole vibe, that's the whole job 💅

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so here's the tea: autodep8 will detect well-known types of packages and then generate DEP-8-compliant test control files for them. iconic behaviour, no notes.

it can be used by DEP-8 implementations to support implicit test control files. that's it, that's the assignment 👑

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🌈 USAGE 🌈

the two moods of running this thing:

$ autodep8                 # assumes source package in current dir
$ autodep8 /path/to/srcpkg # path to source package

so if it detects a known package type, autodep8 exits with 0 and prints the suggested contents of debian/tests/control straight to standard output. chef's kiss 😌

and if a known package type is NOT detected? autodep8 exits with 1 and produces no output. silence. ghosted. 💀

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🎀 AUTOMATIC USAGE BY AUTOPKGTEST 🎀

plot twist, you don't even have to call it yourself — autodep8 can be automatically called by autopkgtest(1). to make that happen, you gotta set the Testsuite: field in the source package paragraph to:

autopkgtest-pkg-TYPE

where TYPE is one of the package types supported by autodep8. the valid values of TYPE are listed below as the headings of the "EXAMPLES OF PRODUCED TEST CONTROL FILES" section — iykyk, scroll down 💫

and hey, go read the autopkgtest(1) documentation for more details, it's all there 🫶

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🔍 HOW THE PACKAGE TYPE IS DETECTED 🔍

okay so the detective work goes like this:

autodep8 will first look for the Testsuite: autopkgtest-pkg-TYPE field in debian/control. if TYPE is a known package type, then boom, that's the one, that's what gets used. ✅

if it's not, then each supported package type is tried against a set of heuristics, based on:

• package names
• build dependencies
• specific files under debian/
• or a combination of those 👀

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💅 PACKAGE-SPECIFIC CONFIGURATION 💅

packages can serve up their own config for autodep8 in:

debian/tests/autopkgtest-pkg-${PACKAGETYPE}.conf

and the file format? here it is, verbatim, no cap:

# comment lines start with # and are ignored.
# note that #'s only mark comments when in the beginning of the line
# empty lines are also ignored

# values are set in this format:
var1=value1

# spaces around the = sign are allowed
var2 = value 2

# backslashes allow one to set values that span multiple lines.
# Note that the newline is removed in the final value, though
# The following is equivalent to "multilinevar=value1, value2"
multilinevar = value1, \
value2

and these are the configuration variables that are supported 👇

✨ All package types ✨

• extra_depends — extra test dependencies to be added to the generated tests. will be included as-is in the generated control file. 🍓
• extra_restrictions — extra restrictions to be added to the generated tests. will be included as-is in the generated control file. 🍓
• architecture — adds restrictions on what architecture the generated tests are suitable to run on. will be included as-is in the generated control file. 🍓

✨ octave (debian/tests/autopkgtest-pkg-octave.conf) ✨

• test_env — value for the DH_OCTAVE_TEST_ENV environment variable that will be used when invoking dh_octave_check. the default value of DH_OCTAVE_TEST_ENV is "xvfb -a". 🎀

✨ python (debian/tests/autopkgtest-pkg-python.conf) ✨

• import_name — name of the module to import, if it can't be inferred from the name of the Debian package. for example, python3-xlib is used via import Xlib, so import_name = Xlib would be appropriate. this used to be configured by writing to debian/tests/pkg-python/import-name, but that is now deprecated. 🙈

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🧚 COMBINING AUTO-GENERATED TESTS WITH MANUALLY SPECIFIED ONES 🧚

if debian/tests/control exists, autodep8 will prepend the contents of that file to its own output. and in that case, autodep8 will exit with a status of 0 even if no known package type is detected. bestie said "you get a zero, and you get a zero" 😌

the same applies for debian/tests/control.autodep8, but the use of that file is deprecated because the test dependencies defined there aren't processed by dpkg-source. so like... don't. 💀

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👑 EXAMPLES OF PRODUCED TEST CONTROL FILES 👑

here come the receipts, bestie. look at all these beautiful generated files 🌈

dkms (kpatch)

Test-Command: /usr/lib/dkms/dkms-autopkgtest
Restrictions: needs-root, allow-stderr
Depends: @, dkms

elpa (flycheck)

Test-Command: dh_elpa_test --autopkgtest
Depends: @, @builddeps@
Restrictions: rw-build-tree

go (prometheus)

Test-Command: /usr/bin/dh_golang_autopkgtest
Depends: @, @builddeps@, dh-golang
Restrictions: allow-stderr
Architecture: !armhf

nodejs (node-tar)

Test-Command: /usr/share/pkg-js-autopkgtest/runner require
Depends: @, pkg-js-autopkgtest
Restrictions: superficial

Test-Command: /usr/share/pkg-js-autopkgtest/runner
Depends: @, @builddeps@, pkg-js-autopkgtest
Restrictions: allow-stderr, skippable

octave (octave-signal)

Test-Command: DH_OCTAVE_TEST_ENV="xvfb-run -a" /usr/bin/dh_octave_check --use-installed-package
Depends: @, octave-control (>= 3.1.0), dh-octave-autopkgtest (>= 0.5.6), xauth, xvfb
Restrictions: allow-stderr

perl (libtest-most-perl)

Test-Command: /usr/share/pkg-perl-autopkgtest/runner build-deps
Depends: @, @builddeps@, pkg-perl-autopkgtest
Features: test-name=autodep8-perl-build-deps

Test-Command: /usr/share/pkg-perl-autopkgtest/runner runtime-deps
Depends: @, pkg-perl-autopkgtest
Features: test-name=autodep8-perl

Test-Command: /usr/share/pkg-perl-autopkgtest/runner runtime-deps-and-recommends
Depends: @, pkg-perl-autopkgtest
Restrictions: needs-recommends
Features: test-name=autodep8-perl-recommends

php (php-composer-semver)

Test-Command: phpunit-autopkgtest
Depends: @, phpunit, pkg-php-tools, @builddeps@,
Restrictions: allow-stderr, skippable,
Features: test-name=phpunit-autopkgtest

puppet_module (puppet-module-puppetlabs-mysql)

Test-Command:  /usr/bin/dh_puppet_module_autopkgtest debian/tests/module_test.pp
Depends: @, dh-puppet, puppet-agent,
Restrictions: needs-root, isolation-container,
Features: test-name=dh-puppet-module-autopkgtest

pybuild (python-ofxclient)

Test-Command: pybuild-autopkgtest
Depends: @, pybuild-plugin-autopkgtest, @builddeps@,
Restrictions: allow-stderr, skippable,
Features: test-name=pybuild-autopkgtest

python (python-flaky)

Test-Command: set -e ; for py in $(py3versions -r 2>/dev/null) ; do cd "$AUTOPKGTEST_TMP" ; echo "Testing with $py:" ; $py -c "import flaky; print(flaky)" ; done
Depends: python3-all, python3-flaky
Restrictions: allow-stderr, superficial
Features: test-name=autodep8-python3

Test-Command: cd "$AUTOPKGTEST_TMP" ; pypy -c "import flaky; print flaky"
Depends: pypy-flaky
Restrictions: allow-stderr, superficial
Features: test-name=autodep8-pypy

r (r-cran-evaluate)

Test-Command: /usr/share/dh-r/pkg-r-autopkgtest
Depends: @, r-cran-testthat,r-cran-testthat-dbgsym,r-cran-lattice,r-cran-lattice-dbgsym,r-cran-ggplot2, pkg-r-autopkgtest
Restrictions: allow-stderr

ruby (ruby-sqlite3)

Test-Command: gem2deb-test-runner --autopkgtest --check-dependencies 2>&1
Depends: @, libsqlite3-dev,rake,ruby-hoe,ruby-minitest,ruby-redcloth, gem2deb-test-runner

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⭐ COPYRIGHT ⭐

Copyright (c) 2014 by the contributing authors. See git log for details. 📜

this program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. 🫶

this program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. no cap, read the license bestie 💀

you should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. if not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. 🌈

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okay that's the whole page, mwah 💖 this was the autodep8(1) manual, dated 2025-12-18 — go forth and generate those test control files, you absolute legend 👑✨