wpkg --tmpdir ...

The --tmpdir option is used to specify a temporary directory to wpkg.

By default, wpkg makes use of the default temporary directory on the operating system it is running. Under all Unix systems, it uses /tmp. Under MS-Windows, it checks the $TEMP and then $TMP environment variables. If neither is set, it uses the C:\Windows\Temp directory as the fallback.

The temporary directory is used to decompress archives (.deb files are archives that include other archives) and when building packages, it uses the temporary directory to save project build data (what cmake and make generate.)

By default, the temporary directory used by an instance of wpkg gets deleted at the time wpkg quits. Note that it may happen that some directories do not get deleted if a crash occurs or a mishandled interruption occurs. There is also a way to request the system for not deleting the directory (which can be useful in case you are attempting to debug what is happening). When the debug flag 0100 is used, then the temporary directory is kept around. You turned on that debug flag in this way:

wpkg --debug 0100 --tmpdir ~/tmp --build

Note that the system generates a message with the full temporary directory path when the temporary directory is not deleted. That is quite useful to know which path was used since the system appends the name "wpkg-<pid>" to the path specified with --tmpdir, or the default.

Note that nearly all the files that will be dealt with in the temporary directory are generated under a sub-directory. For example the build command is likely to use paths that starts like this under Unix:

/tmp/wpkg-1234/build/...
/tmp/wpkg-1234/install/...

For security reasons, the wpkg-1234 directory is given permission 0700 which means only the owner (and root) can read and write in that directory.