Some files listed in Debian/package.install do not install while building deb

Question

I'm trying to build GIMP 2.10.20 into Ubuntu PPA. Everything's good, GIMP was built success and working good, except the languages (missing *gimp20*.mo files).

They are not included in the libgimp2.0 and gimp-data packages, while the upstream Debian build with mostly same debian/ folder do include these files.

Here's what in debian/gimp-date.install:

# The following line is prefixed as the source contains an etc/ dir, and
# dh_install will prefer to install its entire contents, instead of the
# installed debian/tmp/etc directory. Prefixing it works around this.
debian/tmp/etc/
usr/share/gimp/
usr/share/icons/
usr/share/locale/*/LC_MESSAGES/gimp20.mo
usr/share/locale/*/LC_MESSAGES/gimp20-python.mo
usr/share/locale/*/LC_MESSAGES/gimp20-script-fu.mo
usr/share/locale/*/LC_MESSAGES/gimp20-std-plug-ins.mo
usr/share/locale/*/LC_MESSAGES/gimp20-tips.mo
usr/share/man/man5/gimprc.5
usr/share/man/man5/gimprc-?.??.5

And debian/libgimp2.0.install:

usr/lib/lib*.so.*
usr/share/locale/*/LC_MESSAGES/gimp20-libgimp.mo

And debian/rules :

#!/usr/bin/make -f

export DEB_BUILD_MAINT_OPTIONS = hardening=+all
export DEB_LDFLAGS_MAINT_APPEND = -Wl,-O1 -Wl,--as-needed

ifeq (yes,$(shell dpkg-vendor --derives-from Ubuntu && echo yes))
    BUGTRACKER = https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gimp/+filebug?no-redirect
else
    BUGTRACKER = https://www.debian.org/Bugs/Reporting
endif

%:
    dh $@

# Don't switch to Multi-Arch yet because of potential incompatibility with
# third-party add-ons
override_dh_auto_configure:
    dh_auto_configure -- \
        --libdir=/usr/lib \
        --libexecdir=/usr/lib/gimp \
        --disable-static \
        --disable-python \
        --disable-check-update \
        --enable-default-binary \
        --enable-gtk-doc \
        --without-appdata-test \
        --without-webkit \
        --without-xvfb-run \
        --with-bug-report-url=$(BUGTRACKER)

override_dh_autoreconf:
    dh_autoreconf --as-needed

# exclude since we manually add the Suggests in debian/control
override_dh_shlibdeps:
    dh_shlibdeps -Xusr/lib/gimp/2.0/modules/libcontroller-midi.so \
        -Llibgimp2.0 -l$(CURDIR)/debian/libgimp2.0/usr/lib

override_dh_makeshlibs:
    dh_makeshlibs -X/usr/lib/gimp/2.0/modules -- -c4

override_dh_install-arch:
    find debian/tmp -name '*.la' -print -delete
    dh_install -a

override_dh_install-indep:
    find debian/tmp -name '*.la' -print -delete
    dh_install -i

override_dh_missing:
    dh_missing --fail-missing

And build log :launchpadlibrarian.net

Answer 1

This is new change new to me too. Looking through the build log. *.mo files were actually created.

installing am.gmo as /<<PKGBUILDDIR>>/debian/tmp/usr/share/locale/am/LC_MESSAGES/gimp20.mo
installing ar.gmo as /<<PKGBUILDDIR>>/debian/tmp/usr/share/locale/ar/LC_MESSAGES/gimp20.mo
...

Processed

dh_strip_nondeterminism
 Normalized debian/gimp-data/usr/share/locale/nb/LC_MESSAGES/gimp20-tips.mo
 Normalized debian/gimp-data/usr/share/locale/nb/LC_MESSAGES/gimp20-python.mo
 ...

Then striped and put in a separate archive

pkgstriptranslations: processing gimp (in debian/gimp); do_strip: 1, oemstrip: 
pkgstriptranslations: processing libgimp2.0-doc (in debian/libgimp2.0-doc); do_strip: 1, oemstrip: 
pkgstriptranslations: processing libgimp2.0 (in debian/libgimp2.0); do_strip: 1, oemstrip: 
pkgstriptranslations: libgimp2.0-doc does not contain translations, skipping
pkgstriptranslations: preparing translation tarball gimp_2.10.20-0focal5_amd64_translations.tar.gz...done
INFO: Disabling pkgmaintainermangler for PPA build
INFO: Disabling pkgstripfiles for PPA build
dpkg-deb: building package 'libgimp2.0-doc' in '../libgimp2.0-doc_2.10.20-0focal5_all.deb'.
debian/gimp/usr/share/applications/gimp.desktop: stripping translations
pkgstriptranslations: gimp does not contain translations, skipping
pkgstriptranslations: no translation files, not creating tarball
INFO: Disabling pkgmaintainermangler for PPA build
INFO: Disabling pkgstripfiles for PPA build
dpkg-deb: building package 'gimp' in '../gimp_2.10.20-0focal5_amd64.deb'.
INFO: pkgstriptranslations version 144
pkgstriptranslations: processing gimp-data (in debian/gimp-data); do_strip: 1, oemstrip: 
pkgstriptranslations: updating translation tarball gimp_2.10.20-0focal5_amd64_translations.tar.gz...done
INFO: Disabling pkgmaintainermangler for PPA build
INFO: Disabling pkgstripfiles for PPA build
dpkg-deb: building package 'gimp-data' in '../gimp-data_2.10.20-0focal5_all.deb'.
pkgstriptranslations: updating translation tarball gimp_2.10.20-0focal5_amd64_translations.tar.gz...done
INFO: Disabling pkgmaintainermangler for PPA build
INFO: Disabling pkgstripfiles for PPA build
dpkg-deb: building package 'libgimp2.0' in '../libgimp2.0_2.10.20-0focal5_amd64.deb'.
INFO: pkgstriptranslations version 144
pkgstriptranslations: processing libgimp2.0-dev (in debian/libgimp2.0-dev); do_strip: 1, oemstrip: 
pkgstriptranslations: libgimp2.0-dev does not contain translations, skipping
pkgstriptranslations: no translation files, not creating tarball

So, the translation are in gimp_2.10.20-0focal5_amd64_translations.tar.gz.

Now, the current issue is gimp_2.10.20-0focal5_amd64_translations.tar.gz is not published anyway, nothing is in your PPA. My only explanation for now, this feature of splitting translations is only working for official repository where they collect them in single file for each channel, but for PPA I am not sure if it is working.