Hi Guido,
thank you for clarifying your posting. Don't worry. It's all fine.
It took me some iterations to get the recipe files correct. Having to review at every cycle - and losing my review work when changing the recipes - did not seem attractive to me. So I wanted to postpone the ABI-cleanup until my test code could compile against the package.
In my experience, the creation of the ABI-symbols file is a step that comes not before the actual porting work is finished. A target can use/link a library without an ABI symbols file when built from the build directory (not from a depot source archive). So during the repetitive porting process, the library can be repeatedly linked and tested from within the build directory using a regular target. The packaging does not stand in the way here.
The creation of the symbols file it is typically a one-off task with subsequent manual curation - at packaging time, not at library-porting time. As far as I remember, I have rarely called the abi_symbols tool more than once while porting/packaging a library.
It is clear by now, that our typical workflow needs to be better documented.
So I end with a plea to make that warning easily bypassed during package development. Not just for me but also for others who start packaging.
Would the following command possibly work for you?
abi_symbols <your-library>.lib.so | grep -v '#' > <your-symbols-file>
Cheers Norman