I have used Yada (<http://packages.debian.org/stable/devel/yada.html>)
instead of dh_make to produce the debianization scripts for this
package; when we run

  yada yada
  yada rebuild rules

Yada reads the files debian/packages and debian/changelog and
regenerates all the other scripts and control files in debian/ from
them. The format of debian/packages file is very nice, and the Yada
docs are excellent.

PROBLEM: for one reason or another (probably dependence on
/usr/bin/yada) the generated scripts may not work on systems with
wrong versions of Yada installed.

The workaround is to run "yada yada; yada rebuild rules" by hand to
rebuild the stuff in debian/. For example:

  # Download the sources:
  cd ~/tmp/
  wget http://angg.twu.net/debian/dists/potato/local/source/lua_4.0-0.3.diff.gz
  wget http://angg.twu.net/debian/dists/potato/local/source/lua_4.0-0.3.dsc
  wget http://angg.twu.net/debian/dists/potato/local/source/lua_4.0.orig.tar.gz

  # Make sure you have the build-dependencies installed:
  apt-get install yada texinfo

  # Unpack the sources in /tmp:
  cd /tmp/
  rm -Rv lua*
  dpkg-source -x ~/tmp/lua_4.0-0.3.dsc

  # Enter the source dir, rerun yada:
  cd /tmp/lua-4.0/
  yada yada
  yada rebuild rules
  
  # Make the .deb (and write a log of all steps in odrb):
  debian/rules binary   2>&1 | tee odrb

  # Install it -- the package has no strange dependencies, so we can
  # just "dpkg -i" it; on an i386 running GNU/Linux,
  dpkg -i /tmp/lua_4.0-0.3_i386.deb


That's it. Have fun, and also keep an eye at Daniel Silverstone's
package of Lua-4.1-alpha, that is much drier than mine but is
officially part of Debian, and so is much more dependable -- heads
will roll in public if it has ugly problems. Here's a pointer to it:

  <http://packages.debian.org/unstable/interpreters/lua.html>

I have contacted him and we are discussing a clean way to add my
changes to his package. We are planning to create a separate "dllua"
package, for example; I'll write down the details later. By the way:
it is my fault that this is taking too long to happen.

  Edrx (Eduardo Ochs)
  http://angg.twu.net/
  http://angg.twu.net/index.html#lua
  October 13, 2001