> Good advice, it's always been my approach, especially when using some > kind of scripting language. At the moment I can download the latest srpm > for which there is a (not yet installed) binary rpm. > > I get an error trying to install it if the binary is already installed, since > yum/rpm sees the installed version and refuses to install the srpm, > thinking it already installed. As far as I know there's no way to ask rpm > if a source rpm is 'installed', and I think even if there is, it should be > ignored and overwritten. Since I just delete the original sources > as soon as I'm happy with the rpmbuild -ba results (I then have a new srpm), > I don't think rpm is aware of srpms after they've been installed, or I'd have > had problems reinstalling them. rpm doesn't track installed source rpms anywhere - so I'm not sure where you get this error from. Remember users can install source rpms, too. > Do you think it would be better to write a new 'install source rpm' command, > or add option(s) to install/update/list/check-update/... ? > > At the moment I think adding options would be better, but the yum code base > is still new to me, and I do like elegant solutions since they're easier to > understand and maintain. > > At the moment I'm simply treating xxx.src like it's a new architechture > (simlar to xxx.i386, xxx.i585, ...), and it's still very much a quick and > dirty solution just to get started. don't do that. That's ugly and confusing to new users. Do this. Create an entirely separate executable. It should import from the yum module in 2.1.X but it shouldn't be an option to yum at all. yum-source is one potential name. but I have no intention of cluttering up the yum command with options for src.rpms. I'm fine with including it along with yum but just like rpmbuild and rpm are separate commands - so should there be a separation for this. -sv
