How can I add a PPA with only Ubuntu releases to a Debian machine?

I know [(thanks Jim Paris)](https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/45905/269) that I can use add-apt-repository on Debian by first: sudo apt-get install software-properties-common However, I still can't simply run (for example): sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nextcloud-devs/client sudo apt-get update ...because the [distro folder for that PPA](http://ppa.launchpad.net/nextcloud-devs/client/ubuntu/dists/) only lists Ubuntu releases (artful, bionic...) not Debian releases (jessie, stretch...). So apt fails to find packages for my release. I can solve this manually (decide the most appropriate Ubuntu rleease, download the repo keys, modify /etc/apt-get/sources.list), but I'd prefer to do it from the command line. Can I pass a command-line parameter, or otherwise convince add-apt-repository to pick an Ubuntu release? Something like: sudo add-apt-repository --force-distro=artful ppa:nextcloud-devs/client