change “fakeroot debian/rules binary” output dir

Question

I am building debian packages and I'd like the new package to be delivered in the project root folder . instead of in ../
Is there anyway of doing it without overriding debian/rules dh_builddeb? Ideally with a parameter to fakeroot, but I don't see how.

Answer 1

According to the Debian Policy Manual:

[The binary target] should then create the relevant binary package(s), using dpkg-gencontrol to make their control files and dpkg-deb to build them and place them in the parent of the top level directory.

So you should be able to put the package somewhere else by writing a wrapper around dpkg-deb and putting it ahead of /usr/bin on the $PATH. dh_builddeb, which is the most common way of causing the binary package to be build, does call dpkg-deb through $PATH.

However putting the build products in the toplevel directory seems risky to me. If you're not careful, they may end up in a source package or diff.