• PHP4Removal

This page is to document the removal of php4 from testing/unstable prior to the release of lenny.

• announcment of intent to remove php4

• "master" bug documenting removal

• wotomae tracker page for the removal

Tasks

• (done) locate packages that are affected by the removal (i.e. reverse deps on binary packages from php4 source)

• (done) file bugs on all these packages

• divide bugs into one or more of three categories, and make a note in the above tracker:

  fix-deps

  packages with incorrect dependencies (i.e. depending on only php4 instead of php5 | php4).

  extra-binary

  source packages providing php4 and php5 versions of a binary package.

  obsolete

  source packages providing only php4 versions of a version-specific binary package (i.e. php4-sqlite)

• handle the bugs

Handling The Bugs

here's a rough outline of how each of the different classifications of bugs should be handled.

fix-deps

the fix may be as simple as changing the dependancy on php4 to php5 | php4 in the control file.

note, some of these packages appear to be very old and possibly unmaintained (i.e. twig). if this appears to be the case, a note should be made, so that later a mail can be sent to debian-qa and/or debian-mentors to see if there's any interest in the package.

another note, some php based software doesn't work well in php5. if you know this package to be one of such programs, then it may instead need to be re-categorized as "obsolete" below.

extra-binary

for these packages, you should remove the information about the php4 version of the binary package from debian/control, as well as any other references in other files from ./debian (lines in debian/rules, debian/php4-foo.dirs, etc).

the maintainer may wish to keep this information (for backporting maybe), but if so, it can be left to them to re-merge the removed lines in a way that doesn't build the php4 binaries by default.

obsolete

an RM bug should be filed to ftp-master, indicating that the package in question is obsolete and serves no purpose since php4 is going to be removed. here's a sample template:

Package: ftp.debian.org
Severity: normal

the foo package has been identified as a candidate for removal 
during the php4-removal transition, as it is a package specific 
to php4 and therefore provides no use without the php4 
software in debian, which will soon be removed.

After doing so, please make a note in the tracker (or should this bug report also be usertagged? hmm...)

Tasks Status

note: i've started a wotomae tracker at http://wotomae.debian.net/tracker/php4-removal . status/updates/comments for this task should be maintained there.

You can see usertagged packages at http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?users=pkg-php-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org;tag=php4-removal.

Bug Filing

The following template may be helpful

Package: yourpackage
Severity: serious
User: pkg-php-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org
Usertags: php4-removal

This package has been identified as affected by the removal of php4 from debian.  

As php4 will soon be removed, it is very important that we:
 - update the dependencies of all applicable packages to coexist with php5
 - remove source and/or binary packages which have no use without php4

for more information on what may need to be done, please see

    http://wiki.debian.org/PHP4Removal

if you have any questions, please contact the debian php maintainers

    pkg-php-maint@lists.alioth.debian.org


thanks,
   yourname here

This way the bugs will automatically find their way into the above mentioned wotomae tracker.

Affected and unfiled packages

all packages which reverse-depend on "php4.*" and not "php5.*", have had bugs reported against them, based on the output of

grep-aptavail -n -F Depends -s Package -e 'php4|phpapi-20050606' \
    --and --not -F Source -X php4 --and --not -F Depends php5 \
    --and --not -F  Package -X php4 \
    | sed -e 's,^.*$,||&||,'

however, if a package was missed, feel free to use the template from Bug Filing above.